For the first time in the very young history of the Indianapolis 8 Hour Race, GT3 cars ran beyond sunset and into the night around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
And fittingly enough, it was Conquest Racing – a team that’s competed in the Indianapolis 500 on many occasions throughout their complete history of motorsport – who led the way in the first all-call Free Practice of the weekend.
The Pro class 34 Ferrari 488 GT3 of Cedric Sbirrazzuoli, Daniel Mancinelli, and Alessandro Balzan recorded the fastest time in this evening’s 90-minute Free Practice. Mancinelli’s best lap of 1’22.865 was set just five minutes into the session, when the sun was just starting to recede behind the main grandstands.
Conditions were good on this night, fine skies, no rain, and temperatures steadily dropping from their highs of 24°C ambient and 28°C surface. And there were no major incidents which caused any stoppages, which helped give all 75 drivers ample time to get ready for the night-time finish to Saturday’s race.
Behind Mancinelli and the #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari, the #45 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3-R (Charlie Luck/Elia Erhart/Jan Heylen) was second-fastest courtesy of a 1’22.972 from Heylen. That was the best time among the Pro-Am Cup cars.
Third overall was the sole Silver Cup entry, the #38 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3 of Samantha Tan, Nick Wittmer, and Harry Gottsacker. Wittmer’s best time was a 1’23.101, in ST Racing’s first appearance on the SRO America circuit in nearly four months.
Rounding out the rest of the top five were the #1 K-PAX Lamborghini Huracán GT3 (Andrea Caldarelli/Marco Mapelli/Michele Beretta) in fourth, and just behind the reigning GT World Challenge America Pro champions’ car, was the #23 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari (Charlie Scardina/Onofrio Triarsi Jnr/Alessio Rovera) in fifth.
The #6 US Racetronics Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Tristan Vautier/Steven Aghakhani/Loris Spinelli) matched their car number with the sixth-fastest time, followed by the #71 AF Corse-Francorchamps Ferrari (Daniel Serra/Ulysse de Pauw/Antonio Fuoco) in seventh, then the #77 Craft-Bamboo Racing AMG GT3 (Raffaele Marciello/Daniel Juncadella/Daniel Morad), the #33 Winward Racing AMG GT3 (Russell Ward/Philip Ellis/Jules Gounon), and the #04 CrowdStrike Racing with Riley Motorsports AMG GT3 (George Kurtz/Ben Keating/Colin Braun) completing the overall top ten.
Officially armed with their spare car for the rest of the weekend, the #51 AF Corse-Francorchamps Ferrari (Pierre Ragues/Davide Rigon/Miguel Molina) was able to complete 30 laps and finish the session 19th.
However, proceedings came to a halt early for the #63 DXDT Racing AMG GT3 (Patrick Assenheimer/Bryan Sellers/Dirk Müller). They were only able to complete seven laps before Assenheimer was hit by another car, and brought the car back to the pits with damage that couldn’t be repaired in time to get back out on track.
The spread between the 23 Pro, Pro-Am and Silver Cup cars at the end of this session was 1.7 seconds. Out of the two Am Cars, the #08 DXDT Racing AMG GT3 (Scott Smithson/David Askew/Valentin Pierburg) was the quicker of the two, in 24th.
Preparations will now get underway for Friday, beginning with Pre-Qualifying at 10:35 AM EDT.
Images © Brian Cleary, Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports Group America
