Mercedes-AMG Team Lone Star Racing leads the group of ten cars heading into the Pole Shootout for the 6th running of the Indianapolis 8 Hour Presented by AWS.
The combined times of drivers Lin Hodenius, Maxime Martin, and Jules Gounon averaged 1:22.768, as the #80 Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO was the only car to average under one minute, 23 seconds across its three drivers.
It was Martin’s session-leading time in the second stage of Qualifying which put Lone Star Racing over the top: His lap of 1:22.415 was the fastest of the weekend. Hodenius was second-fastest in his group, while Gounon only needed fifth to lead the pack of cars headed to the Pole Shootout.
Four Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVOs, five BMW M4 GT3 EVOs, and one Porsche 911 GT3 R made it to the Pole Shootout, locking out the other makes, including Chevrolet, Aston Martin, McLaren, and Ferrari.
The #888 Team GMR Mercedes-AMG (Tom Kalender/Luca Stolz/Maro Engel) provisionally has qualified second, after Engel set the quickest time in the third stage of Qualifying at 1:22.585.
Behind them was the fastest of the BMWs, the #777 Team WRT M4 (Raffaele Marciello/Augusto Farfus/Al Faisal Al Zubair). Marciello led off Qualifying with the fastest time in the first stage (1:23.072). Team WRT’s blue #46 BMW also advanced to the Pole Shootout, boosting the Belgian superteam’s chances of a three-peat at Indy.
The #34 JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG and #75 75 Express Mercedes-AMG complete the Silver Arrows customers headed to fight for pole. From BMW, both Random Vandals Racing cars, the #51 and #99, made it through – as did the only Pro-Am car in the Pole Shootout, the #29 Turner Motorsport BMW.
Adding to the difficulty, the #29 Turner BMW had a problem in the first stage; an issue with a disconnected turbo boost hose under the bonnet of the black and blue M4 forced the team to make swift repairs. Justin Rothberg lost his previous lap times, but was able to set a representative lap.
Co-drivers Patrick Gallagher and Robby Foley fought to put the Turner BMW in, ahead of its GT World Challenge America Pro-Am title rival, the #11 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, which was the first car bumped from the Pole Shootout.
The only Porsche that made the cut was the #120 Wright Motorsports 911 GT3 R, last year’s GT World America Pro champion team, making a one-off return to the IGTC’s North American round. Laurin Heinrich got the green and yellow Porsche in during the final stage.
A second Porsche may well have joined, but at the very start of the third stage of Qualifying, Alessio Picariello left the pits in the #18 RS1 Porsche and stopped at turn two. He was able to get the car re-cycled after an alarm went off on his dashboard, but not in time to prevent a red flag, and the loss of his two fastest laps.
With no representative time, Picariello, Jan Heylen, and Alex Sedgwick went from a top-ten starting spot to 23rd on the grid.
Meanwhile, two cars, the #04 CrowdStrike by Riley Mercedes-AMG and the #91 Regulator Racing Mercedes-AMG, did not set any representative lap times and will start from the rear of the field. For Regulator Racing, they’d suffered a refuelling issue during the first stage and elected not to make any runs.
For the Riley-backed CrowdStrike team, theirs was a tactical choice, electing to save tyres and start from the rear of the field.
The fastest of the Am cars was the #6 Dollahite Racing Ford Mustang GT3 (qualified 12th), putting it on the sixth row next to the leading Corvette.
2024 Indy 8 Hour polesitter Patric Niederhauser, along with Antares Au and Loek Hartog, will start 13th in the #10 Wright Porsche.
Images © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports America
