Indianapolis Saturday Notebook

Photo: Jordan Lenssen/Porsche

***TireRack Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway pole-sitter Tom Blomqvist said he managed to get the most out of the Michelin tires to take the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 to top qualifying honors for the first time this season in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition.

***Blomqvist said: “Obviously the weather was a bit of an unknown. It could have thrown a curveball there but thankfully we didn’t need to gamble too much. I think we did a good strategy; this track is notoriously hard to warm up the right side tires so just doing those two laps and getting the right tires getting a little bit of temperature, enabled me to get the peak out of the tire.”

***The No. 93 MSR Acura had its red flag penalty for qualifying rescinded, after it became known that Renger van der Zande had a steering issue that led him to enter the Turn 4 gravel trap in Friday’s opening practice. Typically, a car loses its fastest time in qualifying if it brings out a red in practice.

***Sunday’s race will mark MSR’s 399th and 400th starts in IMSA competition, ahead of its final scheduled WeatherTech Championship race in next month’s season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans.

***Jeremy Clarke’s third LMP2 class pole in the last four races, and fourth of the season, saw the Inter Europol Competition driver help close the gap to the points-leading No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR Oreca 07 Gibson to just 26 points. The ten-point haul came after George Kurtz qualified sixth in class.

***Both GTD Pro and GTD qualifying sessions were scratched due to lightning in the area. The sessions were unable to be delayed due to a time-sensitive schedule. It therefore marked the first time that GTD Pro qualifying had been abandoned since the category’s launch in 2022.

***When asked by Sportscar365 if IMSA’s clamped down officiating approach will change his approach in tomorrow’s race as the GTP points leader, Jack Aitken said finding the “balance can be tricky” with “no black and white” in terms of regulations but it’s “down to us and race direction to tread that line as well as we can.”

***Aitken added: “We saw something similar this time last year with a focus on cleaner racing from race direction. Everybody needs to be quite heads up about because I think IMSA is known for hard, but fair racing. We want to preserve that but we also don’t want to have cars being fired off into the wall.”

***With the No. 31 Action Express Cadillac V-Series.R qualifying second in the hands of Aitken and the No. 6 Penske Porsche 963 of Kevin Estre set to start eighth, Aitken provisionally now holds a 127-point lead over Laurin Heinrich entering tomorrow’s two-hour and 40-minute contest.

***Heinrich, who is back with Porsche Penske Motorsport for the final two races of the season in his GTP title bid, recently reflected on the fact that he only turned his first laps in a Porsche 963, or of any kind of prototype, less than 12 months ago in a test at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.

***He told Sportscar365: “If I think back one year ago, I could not have imagined the situation I’m in right now. Obviously things have developed super quick but it’s sort of the story of my career. I’m used to that, more or less. That’s the expectation to myself also. I’m in a very happy place but I’m still far from being done of where I want to be.”

***This weekend marks Nico Mueller’s return to the wheel of a Porsche 963 in exactly 12 month, as the factory Porsche Formula E driver has rejoined JDC-Miller Motorsports for the final two races of the season. The Swiss driver’s only other sports car start since the 2025 event here came at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, where he was part of a second place LMP2 class result with Inter Europol Competition.

***Mueller told Sportscar365 about JDC-Miller’s year-to-year gains: “You can already feel that on the operational side. They’ve really gelled. There’s a lot of consistency in the team as well with the people. You can feel much more confidence in the team already, which is great to see.”

***While linked to possibly taking one of Porsche Penske’s seats for the three long-distance races next year, Mueller, who made one previous start with the factory team in last year’s FIA World Endurance Championship round at Spa-Francorchamps, said he’d jump at the chance if given the opportunity but indicated that a decision has not yet been made. “I think no one would say no to have a crack at one of those big races together with them,” he said.

***Sportscar365 understands that Mercedes-AMG factory driver Ralf Aron is in the frame to rejoin Lone Star Racing for Petit Le Mans, taking Scott Andrews’ seat in the team’s No. 80 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo alongside James Roe and Lin Hodenius, who is understood to be under evaluation for a possible increased role with the German manufacturer.

***Inception Racing is set to continue in the WeatherTech Championship GTD ranks next year according to team manager Bas Leinders, who is expecting an unchanged lineup of Brendan Iribe, Frederik Schandorff and the expected return of Ollie Millroy for the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona.

***Leinders told Sportscar365: “We’ve been here since the end of 2021. We plan to come back. That is the plan. Obviously, between sometimes planning and what actually happens, I think there’s a good chance that we will just continue the way we are at the moment.”

***Sportscar365 understands that several active NTT IndyCar Series team owners have expressed interest and held meetings with series’ management this weekend on potentially expanding or returning to WeatherTech Championship competition by as early as next year.

***IMSA President John Doonan told Sportscar365: “Candidly there’s teams that run here in Indianapolis during the ‘Month of May’ that are expressing interest in LMP2. Drivers from some of their open wheel development programs that see a long-term career in sports car racing that are here this weekend sniffing around, trying to put deals together.”

***Doonan revealed that pre-event ticket sales for Petit Le Mans is already surpassed numbers from this time last year. The IMSA-owned Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta facility has invested in the addition of up to 2,000 parking spots and a new exit road to help facilitate additional spectators following last year’s sell-out.

***IMSA, meanwhile, has walked back original plans to hold sanctioned tests at all five Endurance Cup venues next year, and will only add official tests at Sebring International Raceway in February and Road Atlanta next September.

***Doonan said: “I think we wanted to do a step program and allow the independent test day folks to continue to execute those tests (at Watkins Glen and Road America). We’re really sensitive to budgets, so that was our goal, to try and consolidate a bit and save the teams a bit of budget when we can.”

***WRT team principal Vincent Vosse has ruled out an expansion into GT3 racing full-time in the U.S. next year, with the Belgian squad, which established a North American outpost within the Haas Racing shop in North Carolina, set to again be entirely focused its GTP operations.

***Vosse told Sportscar365: “I always said once we are set with GTP and everything is rolling, we are open to think about it, of course. Why not try to repeat a little bit like what we have in Europe? We have the experience of the cars, the tracks. We have some requests but you cannot just [do it with a snap]. It’s not an easy task.”

***Instead, Vosse suggested the possibility of several one-off GT3 outings next year that would be run out of its base near Liege. “Maybe at some stage we decide to do one or two races because we have requests but that will be run from our European base if that happens,” he said. “But we cannot really do more things from our base in Europe. We are already doing a lot.”

***Mack Trucks and IMSA have entered into a three-year partnership, adding ten new Mack Pioneer models to its fleet. The model, built as 76-inch high-roof sleepers, will begin rolling out in the IMSA paddock later this year. Once in service, the trucks will be part of the series’ season-long operations including trackside race control and technical inspection, engineering and data analysis as well as marketing and business operations.

***Gameloft announced earlier this week the launch of ‘IMSA Endurance Mode Spotlight’ a brand-new game mode to Asphalt Legends. Players can experience an arcade interpretation of endurance racing, inspired by IMSA competitions. The game is available on a wide range of platforms including Xbox One and Series X, Playstation 4 and 5, PC, as well as on iOS and Android mobile devices.

***Turner Motorsport is racing with heavy hearts this weekend following the passing of Matt Dalton late last month at the age of 62. Dalton, a class champion in Ferrari Challenge North America in 2024, also competed in both SRO America and IMSA competition, most recently in VP Racing SportsCar Challenge with the Will Turner-led team. Dalton also supported driver Patrick Gallagher through his Belle Haven Investments firm.

***Sunday’s action will kick off with the second races of the weekend for Porsche Carrera Cup North America (11:20 a.m. EST) and Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America (12:20 p.m.), which will be streamed on Peacock, IMSA’s YouTube channel as well as the Porsche Motorsport North America and Lamborghini Squadra Corse YouTube channels for its respective races.

***Coverage of the TireRack Battle on the Bricks gets underway at 3 p.m. EST on network NBC as well as on Peacock and internationally on IMSA’s YouTube channel. Brian Till and Calvin Fish will lead the NBC Sports broadcast team, with Kevin Lee, Amanda Busick, Chris Wilner and the welcome return of Matt Yocum on pit lane, while the usual team of John Hindhaugh, Ryan Myrehn and Arjuna Kankipati will anchor IMSA Radio’s coverage.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John