Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM Racing leads the pack of ten cars that will advance to the Indianapolis 8 Hour Race Pole Shootout, later this afternoon.
In the three-round Qualifying, the trio of Maro Engel, Mikaël Grenier, and Jules Gounon took provisional pole in their #130 Mercedes-AMG GT3, setting an average aggregate lap time of 1:23.425.
Engel and Grenier led the first and second phases of Qualifying individually.
The #4 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Alex Palou/Fabian Schiller/Luca Stolz) qualified second to make it a Silver Arrows 1-2.
All five IGTC Pro class cars advanced to the Pole Shootout with the three BMW M4 GT3s in class finishing third through fifth.
The two Team WRT BMWs led the way, the #31 (Dries Vanthoor/Sheldon van der Linde/Charles Weerts) ahead of the #33 (Augusto Farfus/Dan Harper/Max Hesse), the latter of which made it in just a little more than 24 hours after it arrived at the Brickyard.
In fifth was the #99 Random Vandals Racing BMW (Kenton Koch/Conor Daly/Connor de Phillippi).
Sixth-fastest on aggregate was the #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (Adam Adelson/Elliott Skeer/Laurin Heinrich), one of three Porsches to make it through to the Pole Shootout and one of three Fanatec GT America Pro cars to advance as well.
Heinrich, last year’s Indy 8 Hour pole winner, set the fastest outright lap in the third phase of qualifying, with a 1:22.986.
The other two Porsches to advance were the #10 Herberth Motorsport Porsche (Antares Au/Loek Hartog/Patric Niederhauser) and the #85 RS1 Porsche (Jake Pedersen/Trent Hindman/Kay van Berlo).
Herberth Motorsport was one of two Pro-Am teams to progress, the other was the #888 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes-AMG (Prince Jefri Ibrahim/Jordan Love/Arjun Maini).
Rounding out those ten cars progressing was the #28 ST Racing BMW (Varun Choksey/Bill Auberlen/Philipp Eng).
The first car to miss the cut was the #75 SunEnergy1/75 Express Mercedes-AMG (Kenny Habul/Jayden Ojeda/Lucas Auer), by just 0.025 seconds on average.
The best of the non-German branded cars was the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 (Luca Mars/Zach Veach/Gabby Chaves) in 12th.
Other notable cars that missed out on a Pole Shootout berth included the #32 GMG Racing Porsche with IGTC Championship leader Ayhancan Güven aboard in 14th, and the #63 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R in 15th, well behind its main rival in the GT World Challenge America Pro title race.
The two protagonists in GTWC America’s Pro-Am title fight also missed out, with the #29 Turner Motorsport BMW in 13th, and the #38 ST Racing BMW in 16th.
COMBINED QUALIFYING RESULTS >>
Images © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports America
