Spinelli Quickest in Free Practice at The Brickyard

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Loris Spinelli set the quickest time in Free Practice for Saturday’s Desder Indianapolis 8 Hour, putting Chicago Performance and Tuning Co.’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 atop the overall time sheets for the first time in GT World Challenge America powered by AWS competition.

Spinelli reeled off a best time of 1:23.686 in his Pro-Am class entry to edge out the No. 88 Kellymoss Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Loek Hartog by a mere 0.024 seconds.

Alex Sedgwick was third quickest in the No. 6 Dollahite Racing Ford Mustang GT3 EVO, while Marcus Ericsson made it four different GT3 manufacturers in the top-four aboard the No. 99 Random Vandals Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO.

While the No. 32 GMG Racing Porsche of Riccardo Pera was fifth quickest, it was one of two cars to bring out a red flag early in the running.

Ayhancan Guven’s Buc-ee’s-liveried Porsche stopped on the inside of Turn 6, although the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo had a bake disc explosion heading into Turn 1 in the hands of five-time NTT IndyCar Series champion Alex Palou.

The Lone Star Mercedes-AMG did not return to action, while the GMG Porsche was back out in the hands of Pera, who is subbing for Porsche Motorsport North America Selected Driver Tom Sargent, who is on European Le Mans Series duty this weekend.

There was an additional incident between the No. 28 RS1 Porsche and No. 163 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo in Turn 1, which did not result in a stoppage, but the RS1 Porsche of Daan Arrow was handed a three-minute stop-and-hold penalty for incident responsibility.

Quickest in the Pro class in the session was the No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW of Robby Foley, who set the eighth quickest time overall, behind the No. 31 Wright Motorsports Porsche and No. 27 JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG.

The No. 67 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari of Conrad Grunewald paced the Am class, which only saw two of the three cars set laps in the dusk-turned-night session.

The No. 11 Mad Joker Racing Mercedes-AMG was the only car not to turn laps over the 90 minutes of running.

Next up is Pre-Qualifying, which is set for a 9:50 a.m. EST start with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel.

RESULTS: Free Practice

Dylan Spaulding contributed to this report

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