It’s a beautiful day at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the first day of on-track activities for the Indianapolis 8-Hour Race presented by AWS (interchangeably, the Indianapolis 8 Hours, the Indy 8 Hours, etc.)
Every team has arrived for this penultimate round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge, and the final round of the GT World Challenge America. So too, has DSC, who are in the paddock for it all.
Stephen Cameron Racing’s new Mercedes-AMG GT3 makes its debut in the series. They raced in this event last year, running a BMW M4 GT4.
This year they switched allegiances from BMW to Mercedes, initially in GT4 America, before stepping up to the GT3 ranks this weekend.
GMG Racing have entered their Ukrainian coloured Porsche 911 GT3-R for the first time since Road America.
They are nominated to score Intercontinental GT Challenge points for Porsche, with all IGTC eligible teams carrying the series’ logo sticker on the doors, and white Fanatec windscreen banners.
This is the Andretti Autosport x Vital Speed Ferrari, the same chassis and same livery that ran under the Vital Speed banner in 2020.
Jarett Andretti is continuing the legacy of his late father John as a versatile driver, handy in everything from sports cars to sprint cars, and Ryan Briscoe and Jeff Westphal complete a strong team.
AF Corse (formally: AF Corse-Francorchamps) have unfinished business at this race: Their #71 entry was tracking well to win the race before an incident with a GT4 backmarker ended their day.
This race could be a “coming out party” for young Ulysse De Pauw, if he hasn’t had it already. The 21-year-old Belgian won this year’s GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup Silver Drivers’ Championship. De Pauw is driving alongside Ferrari sports car racing regulars Antonio Fuoco and Daniel Serra.
However it’s already been a rocky start to the weekend for their sister car, the #51 of Pierre Ragues, Miguel Molina, and Davide Rigon. They suffered damage in a crash during the morning test session.
AF Corse are already hard at work preparing their backup car for the remainder of the weekend.
Craft-Bamboo Racing have returned to Indianapolis, paying homage to the legendary Theodore Racing team with their special livery.
The trailblazing team from Hong Kong were a perennial presence at Indianapolis, sponsoring several Indy 500 entries through the late 1970s and early ’80s.
This continues a theme of Craft-Bamboo running special liveries to pay homage to motorsports luminaries that have influenced both the Asian and American scenes, they did a special Dean Moon/Mooneyes tribute livery last season.
The chassis itself is on loan from Texas-based Lone Star Racing, who are offering support to Craft-Bamboo Racing this weekend.
Daniel Juncadella and Raffaele Marciello, who finished second overall in last year’s Indy 8H, are second and fourth in IGTC Drivers’ points, respectively.
Conquest Racing’s Ferrari returns after a strong debut outing at Sebring.
Manny Franco is here, but he’s stepped aside from driving duties for the weekend in favour of Cedric Sbirrazzuoli (Alessandro Balzan’s co-driver in GTWC Europe this season), and Daniel Mancinelli.
TR3 Racing have been nominated for IGTC points on behalf of Lamborghini, a big opportunity for Utah’s Jeff Burton, his co-driver/coach Corey Lewis, and Hollywood stunt driver Jon Branam who will collectively race in Pro-Am.
This is Burton’s second car, which he’ll race in GT America on Friday and Sunday.
A very warm welcome back to ST Racing, who returns to the series for the first time since their devastating crash at VIRginia International Raceway Race 1.
While parts shortages aggravated by supply chain disruptions have sidelined their GTWCA campaign until now, it hasn’t stopped Samantha Tan and her squad from achieving success elsewhere around the world.
They’re the only Silver Cup entry in the field this weekend, so the aim will be to finish as high up in the overall order as possible against all the other Pro-Am and Pro Cup teams.
In order of garage stalls, BimmerWorld Racing are the first of the four teams competing for the GT World Challenge America Pro-Am Cup Championships.
The good news is that they have IMSA mainstay Richard Heistand joining regulars Chandler Hull and Bill Auberlen, and they come into this year off the back of consecutive GT4 class wins here in 2020-21.
But to overhaul a 46 point deficit in the Drivers’ Standings they need a win and trouble for the other three contenders they’re up against.
RealTime Racing have a new silver-based livery for their Indy 8 Hour appearance, supplemented by the addition of Taylor Hagler to the regular lineup of Erin Vogel and Michael Cooper.
New GT World Challenge Europe Teams’ Champions, Akkodis ASP, are supporting the SunEnergy1 Mercedes-AMG entry that is looking to wrap up the Pro-Am Drivers’ Championship for Kenny Habul and Martin Konrad.
The Bathurst 12 Hour overall winners, and last year’s GT3 Pro-Am winners at Indy, are joined this weekend by Dominik Baumann.
Zelus Motorsports and Jason Harward are back in the main series for the first time since Watkins Glen, and they’ve changed up their signature “Bullnicorn” livery for this weekend.
16-year-old Seth Lucas is already set to make his GT3 racing debut, and yesterday the team announced that longtime World Challenge competitor – and Harward’s GT America series rival – Jason Daskalos will complete the team’s Am Cup lineup.
Hattori Motorsports (Lucas’ team in GT America) and Daskalos Motorsports will also be working together on this programme.
What’s more, Utah-based designers Envision have also given the Bullnicorn treatment to a first-gen Audi R8 LMS which Harward will run in GT America – putting two of the first-gen R8s in the field!
Speaking with Zelus Motorsports’ team owner Tigh Isaac, he confirmed that despite a disjointed 2022 season, Zelus plans to be back to run a full season in 2023 with “multiple customers interested” in an SRO America programme.
Winward Racing are back in the SRO paddock after missing Sebring, but they could be the chariot that propels Jules Gounon and Mercedes-AMG to the IGTC Drivers’ and Manufacturers’ Championship this weekend.
Because the lowest score is dropped at the end of the season, the maths are simple, if the #33 Mercedes of Gounon, Russell Ward, and Philip Ellis wins the race tomorrow, Gounon and Mercedes-AMG will win their first IGTC titles as driver and manufacturer.
DXDT Racing have shaken up their two-car programme, putting Bryan Sellers and Dirk Müller with Patrick Assenheimer in a Pro Cup entry in #63…
…and team owner David Askew, Scott Smithson, and Spa 24H Bronze Cup winner Valentin Pierburg in an Am Cup #08 car, making it a two-way fight for Am honours.
Back with a brand new chassis after their devastating wreck in Road America Race 1, is US Racetronics. Perhaps this reset will be what finally propels them to a long-awaited win?
It certainly helps to have Tristan Vautier – the only past IGTC Drivers’ Champion in the field this weekend – to support friends Steven Aghakhani and Loris Spinelli.
USRT are preparing for 2023 already but, in a recent installment of SRO’s Team Download, were tight-lipped on whether their activities for next season would be domestic or international.
Triarsi Competizione’s #13 car of Justin Wetherill, Ryan Dalziel, and new recruit Conrad Grunewald has been nominated for IGTC points for Ferrari…
…and the addition of young Ferrari/AF Corse rising star Alessio Rovera allows 2022 GTWCA Am Cup Champions, Onofrio Triarsi Jnr and Charlie Scardina, the chance to step up to Pro-Am in the #23.
Not a bad way to wrap up their first full season of GT3 racing.
Caught with its doors off, Turner Motorsport are rolling out a white version of their zebra pattern BMW M4 GT3 for this final round of the 2022 GTWCA season.
Michael Dinan and Robby Foley are joined this weekend by BMW factory driver John Edwards, hoping to close the year out strong.
Every member of CrowdStrike Racing with Riley Motorsports has won major hardware of some kind already this season: George Kurtz just won the GT America SRO3 title, Colin Braun won the LMP3 championship in IMSA, and Ben Keating won his class at Le Mans and is odds-on to win the GTE Am Drivers’ Cup in WEC by the end of the year.
Kurtz and Braun can add the GTWCA Pro-Am Championships to that impressive with a class win on Saturday. That win would give them as many as Wright Motorsports, and they would also have the second-place tiebreaker to boot.
This is the same driver trio that won in GT3 Pro-Am in 2020, when they were at DXDT Racing.
Racers Edge Motorsports enter this weekend third in Pro-Am points with Ashton Harrison trying to become the first woman to win a GTWCA series championship, just a year after her first GT3 race last year at Indy. If her and Mario Farnbacher win the race, they would need Wright Motorsports to finish third or lower to win the championship.
Additional Bronze-rated reinforcement don’t get much better than two-time IMSA GTD champion, Christina Nielsen. Expect Farnbacher to be donning a blonde wig in solidarity with his co-drivers if they win on Saturday.
Harrison, Nielsen, Tan, Hagler, and Vogel make five women in this year’s field.
The final Pro-Am title contender from GTWCA is Wright Motorsports, and after the team and ace driver Jan Heylen narrowly missed out on an IMSA GTD title one week ago, he’s keen not to let this one slip away.
For him and father-in-law Charlie Luck to win the title, they along with new recruit Elia Erhart can clinch it with a class win. If they finish second in class, they need to finish ahead of the CrowdStrike/Riley Mercedes to secure the title.
Finally, K-PAX Racing have the chance to lock up another clean sweep of Drivers’, Teams’, and Manufacturers’ Championships in GTWCA. Both their cars, who’ve already won the Teams’ title, are nominated for IGTC points on behalf of Lamborghini.
This would be a good chance for the green #3 Huracán of Jordan Pepper, Misha Goikhberg, and K-PAX newcomer Franck Perera to step out of the shadow of their sister car…
…and for the black #1 of back-to-back Pro Drivers’ Champion Andrea Caldarelli, his regular co-driver Michele Beretta, and the returning Marco Mapelli, it’s a chance to punctuate another extraordinary season with victory in GT World Challenge America’s showcase event.
That’s all 25 teams, but there’s one very outstanding absence as for the first time in Intercontinental GT Challenge history, Audi won’t have a presence in the field in one of their signature GT3 endurance races.
