The #31 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 of Sheldon van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor, and Charles Weerts is leading the Indianapolis 8 Hour Race with four hours to go.
A change of lead seemed likely once Patric Niederhauser pitted his #10 Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R from the lead and turned the keys over to Antares Au. Weerts, who did the second stint of the race, took the lead and his co-drivers have kept the car in the overall lead ever since.
While one WRT BMW is cruising, the #33 WRT BMW has had to fight all the way back from 23rd on the grid and has just taken second place from the #130 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.
GruppeM’s Mikaël Grenier held off Augusto Farfus for about 45 minutes before the Brazilian overtook the Canadian down Hulman Boulevard into turn seven.
But the #33 BMW dropped back after having to serve a five-second penalty in their next stop, putting Dan Harper right behind Grenier again. 35 minutes ago, Harper finally got the run and the slipstream out of turn 14 to get past Grenier and make it a WRT 1-2 at the front.
The race remained incident-free since the incident between Elias Sabo and Kenny Habul that sent the former into the gravel at the end of the first hour, right up until the #99 Random Vandals Racing BMW stopped while Indiana native Conor Daly was running fourth overall.
This brought out a second Safety Car just before the top of the hour and after pit stops, the #31, #33, and #130 remained in that order at the head of the field.
Fourth place and leading the Fanatec GT America Pro class is the #63 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, which took the class lead shortly after the Safety Car was withdrawn from Elias Sabo’s incident at the end of the first hour.
Alec Udell got the blue Corvette to the head of the class and Alexander Sims and Tommy Milner, GM’s works drivers, have kept it there.
However, its main rival in the GT World Challenge America standings, the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche, is now back up to fifth place, one spot behind its rival – even after an unscheduled pit stop for a bent exhaust.
Behind them are the #85 RS1 Porsche, #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 Evo22, and #28 ST Racing BMW, all in position to play spoiler.
Kenny Habul was the strongest of the Bronze drivers that started the race, and it’s led the #75 75 Express Mercedes-AMG to lead the Pro-Am class (ninth overall) now that Herberth’s strategy of starting with their Pro didn’t quite pan out due to the first Safety Car intervention.
But that’s not where the drama rests during the last three hours of the race.
70 minutes in, the #38 ST Racing BMW of Samantha Tan slowed down rapidly and limped back to the pit lane while running second in class and 11th overall.
The car was pushed behind the wall where ST Racing’s mechanics worked to resolve a fuel pump problem. After just a half hour in the garage, the #38 BMW returned to the race, 30 laps down from the overall lead.
As they run now, the #29 Turner Motorsport BMW is second in Pro-Am. But in terms of the GT World Challenge America Pro-Am standings, the #75 Mercedes-AMG is invisible for points – and therefore, Turner’s Justin Rothberg and Robby Foley are on track to take maximum points and potentially overhaul a 33-point gap in the final race.
At the two-hour, 30-minute mark, another fuel pump problem struck down another German-built Pro-Am car – this time it was the #888 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes-AMG which slowly retreated behind the wall.
Arjun Maini threw his driving gloves in disgust, and the car spent over an hour in the garage before returning only a few short minutes ago, nearly 60 laps down.
And along with the #99 BMW’s trouble, the #32 GMG Racing Porsche, carrying Ayhancan Güven as one of its drivers, went to the garage with a mechanical issue within the last hour – surely ending his hopes of winning the Intercontinental GT Challenge Drivers’ Championship.
Guven had already received a drive-through penalty for contact with the #64 DXDT Racing Corvette, which broke the suspension of the latter and caused it to stop at pit entry before going to the pits for repairs.
Images © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports America
