Team WRT has won its second consecutive Indianapolis 8 Hour Race after a dramatic conclusion in the final 35 minutes that saw Sheldon van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor, and Charles Weerts’ #31 BMW M4 GT3 take the win.
The #120 Wright Motorsport Porsche of Adam Adelson, Elliott Skeer, and Laurin Heinrich finished first on the road following a brilliantly-timed pit stop before a Safety Car with three hours left, but Heinrich was given a five-second post-race time penalty for not maintaining his speed in the fast lane of the pit lane.
It turned the final 35 minutes into a chase between Heinrich and Vanthoor, and while the German tried to maintain the five-second delta, his Belgian adversary was able to close to within 4.740 seconds by the end and take first place overall.
After 320 laps of racing, the final margin of victory was just 0.260 seconds.
That result gave Weerts, the second generation of the family behind Team WRT, his first Intercontinental GT Challenge Drivers’ Championship.
But while they missed out on the overall win, second place was still good enough for Wright Motorsports to win the Fanatec GT World Challenge Pro category.
More importantly, it was the result that Adelson and Skeer needed to clinch the GT World Challenge America Pro Drivers’ Championship for the first time. It also helped Porsche clinch the IGTC Manufacturers’ Championship for the first time since 2020.
Rounding out the overall podium was the #130 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Maro Engel/Mikaël Grenier/Jules Gounon).
Fourth place went to the sole Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 in the field, the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura (Luca Mars/Zach Veach/Gabby Chaves), and in fifth, the #63 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R (Alec Udell/Tommy Milner/Alexander Sims) made it five different manufacturers in the overall top five.
The #85 RS1 Porsche (Jake Pedersen/Trent Hindman/Kay van Berlo) finished sixth, less than a second away from the #63 Corvette.
Pro-Am class victory went to the #10 Herberth Motorsport Porsche (Antares Au/Loek Hartog/Patric Niederhauser) in seventh. Au clinched the IGTC Independent Cup title even before the chequered flag after a mechanical retirement for the #888 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes-AMG (Prince Jefri Ibrahim/Jordan Love/Arjun Maini).
A late pit stop for driver stint time compliance dropped the #29 Turner Motorsport BMW (Justin Rothberg/Robby Foley/Patrick Gallagher) down to eighth overall and second in class.
They took the class lead with less than two hours left when the dominant Pro-Am car on the day, the #75 75 Express Mercedes-AMG (Kenny Habul/Jayden Ojeda/Lucas Auer) suffered a catastrophic rear axle failure.
But in the big picture, it was another mechanical issue early in the race – a fuel pump problem for the #38 ST Racing BMW (Samantha Tan/Neil Verhagen/John Capestro-Dubets) that opened the door for Rothberg and Foley to overturn a 33-point deficit and win the GT World Challenge America Pro-Am Championship.
Completing the Pro-Am podium was the ninth-placed #91 Regulator Racing Mercedes-AMG (Jeff Burton/Philip Ellis/Elias Seppanen), and in tenth place was the #163 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 (Jay Schreibman/Oswaldo Negri Jnr/Toni Vilander).
Of the other IGTC Pro contenders, chronic problems with the Lumirank display of the #4 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Alex Palou/Fabian Schiller/Luca Stolz) relegated them to a 13th-place result overall.
The #33 WRT BMW (Dan Harper/Max Hesse/Augusto Farfus) was 16th after a broken diffuser took the trio out of overall podium contention, and the #99 Random Vandals Racing BMW (Kenton Koch/Conor Daly/Connor de Phillippi) was knocked out of contention with recurring fuel pump problems of its own.
More to follow!
Feature images © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports America
