Were it not for the uncooperative weather, the sixth running of the Indianapolis 8 Hour Presented by AWS may have had a compelling and competitive finish. Instead, due to lightning storms, torrential rain, and lots of standing water, the final four hours of Saturday’s race contained only three minutes of green flag racing.
But for its winners, the result was still a meaningful and memorable one – in particular for Kelvin van der Linde and Valentino Rossi, two of the three drivers of the winning #46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO.
As van der Linde took the IGTC Drivers’ Championship, taking the baton from co-driver Charles Weerts, he did so with a historic championship treble in SRO competition. He won the IGTC Drivers’ Championship, and alongside Weerts, van der Linde also won the GT World Challenge Europe Overall Championship, and the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup in the same year.
Only the unclaimed GT World Europe Endurance Cup (won by Sven Müller, Patric Niederhauser, and Alessio Picariello) separated van der Linde from an unprecedented “Grand Slam” of SRO GT3 championships, while matching Andrea Caldarelli and Marco Mapelli’s 2019 Triple Crown in GT World Europe.
Van der Linde’s four IGTC race wins this year at Bathurst, Nürburgring, Suzuka, and Indianapolis are a new single-season record for one driver.
And those four wins were enough for seven career victories in the brief history of the IGTC, breaking a tie with his younger brother Sheldon, as well as Dries Vanthoor, Jules Gounon, and Raffaele Marciello.
Even still, van der Linde was left with bittersweet feelings after the chequered flag on Saturday night. “Honestly, it feels a bit like an anti-climax,” he said. “It was such a cool race, but spending almost two hours behind the Safety Car made it tricky. I think the #777 really deserved the win today, so there are mixed emotions.”
When the race resumed behind the safety car after a two-and-a-half-hour red flag, the #777, led by Marciello, was leading the race and in position to overturn van der Linde’s five-point championship lead. But every team had to be mindful not to exceed their 65-minute maximum stint lengths, so everyone had to come into the pits behind the safety car, shut off the engine, and drive away before the finish.
Van der Linde came down pit road and timed his stop perfectly, while Marciello and the rest of the cars on the lead lap waited one more lap to come in. And as it happened, that was the difference that decided the win and the championship, because there were only two green flag laps of racing before a mechanical failure on the #80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG put the race back behind the safety car, and then more bad weather kept it under yellow for good.
“Still, four out of five wins this year for BMW Motorsport makes me very proud,” he added. “All my teammates and everyone who helped me along the way, from engineers, mechanics, and the entire WRT and Rowe Racing crews, made this an incredible year. Some seasons, luck is just on your side, and this was one of them. It’s been a very special journey.”
Vincent Vosse, the Team Principal of Team WRT, stepped forward to take responsibility for the championship-deciding miscue. “Unfortunately, we made a mistake with the #777 by not calling them in at the right time. I feel very sorry for Lello, but that’s racing. Still, I’m very happy that we were able to bring this trophy home to BMW, and of course, I’m very happy for Kelvin,” he said after the race.
And of course, this was Valentino Rossi’s biggest result of his four-wheeled racing career so far.
With this win, Rossi becomes the first athlete in the storied 110+ year history of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to win a feature race on two and four wheels. Among the many accomplishments for the nine-time Grand Prix motorcycle racing champion, Rossi was the winner of the inaugural MotoGP Indianapolis Grand Prix in 2008 – and ironically, that race was also run under wet conditions due to the remnants of Hurricane Ike washing over Indiana.
And after three GT World Europe Sprint Cup wins, five WEC LMGT3 podium finishes, a runner-up finish at this year’s Bathurst 12 Hour, and a win at the 2023 Road To Le Mans support race around the Circuit de la Sarthe, Saturday’s rain-impacted win at Indy was Rossi’s very first endurance victory since he began racing GT cars full-time.
“In the end, we were a little bit lucky, but that’s racing,” Rossi said. “For me, winning here is special. I won the MotoGP race in 2008 at Indianapolis, so to come back and win again is fantastic. I’m very happy to have helped Kelvin win the championship. We did a great job as a team, and it’s a truly special feeling.”
Images © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports America
