Last year’s Indianapolis 8 Hour Race pole sitter Laurin Heinrich is picking up right where he left off, setting the fastest time in Pre-Qualifying for Wright Motorsports.
Heinrich, who also won the IMSA Battle on the Bricks two weeks ago in a similar Porsche 911 GT3 R, set the fastest lap of the session aboard the green and yellow #120 Wright Porsche. His best lap of 1:23.387 capped off a string of three fast laps for the fleet German driver.
That’s to the benefit of his co-drivers Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeer, who are clinging onto a five-point lead in the GT World Challenge America Pro championship with 50 available to the winner of the Fanatec GT America Pro class.
In contrast, their main championship rivals in the #63 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R (Alec Udell/Tommy Milner/Alexander Sims) finished 23rd and last in this final practice session, with the two DXDT Corvettes stapled to the bottom of the timesheets.
This continues a streak of five consecutive Indy 8 Hour timed sessions led by Porsche customer teams, with the top car in Pro-Am, the #61 EBM Porsche, not far behind as Brendon Leitch set a hot lap towards the end of the session to go second-fastest and make it a Porsche 1-2.
Behind them was the best of the BMWs, the #99 Random Vandals Racing M4 GT3, in third place thanks to a late improvement from Connor de Phillippi, the 2020 race winner.
Past IndyCar Series Rookie of the Year, Gabby Chaves, was a pleasant surprise as he went fourth-fastest in the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3, the manufacturers’ sole representative.
Rounding out the top five was Dries Vanthoor and Team WRT, the defending Indy 8 Hour winners – the #31 Shell-liveried BMW was fifth, followed by the #4 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Fabian Schiller in sixth.
A late improvement from Philip Ellis put the #91 Regulator Racing Mercedes-AMG into seventh, followed by Nick Yelloly, eighth-fastest in the #8 Flying Lizard Motorsports BMW which has fully bounced back from its sensor issue in Free Practice last night.
Jordan Love was ninth-quickest aboard the #888 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes-AMG, with Alex Fontana rounding out the top-ten in the #21 Car Collection Motorsports Porsche.
The first phase of Qualifying starts this afternoon at 3:05 PM EDT (local time), followed by the Pole Shootout for the Indy 8 Hour at 5:35 PM PDT.
Images © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports America
