Indianapolis Saturday Notebook

Photo: Jordan Lenssen/Porsche

***Sebastien Bourdais claimed his first career pole at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the Frenchman’s 22nd attempt, across both sports car and open-wheel competition. It marked Bourdais’ second pole of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season after taking top qualifying honors at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in May.

***Chip Ganassi Racing was one of the very few WeatherTech Championship teams to have tested at the the IMS road course prior to this weekend.

***Bourdais admitted that the GTP championship remains a “long shot” although the 35 points for pole, compared to the 24 points that Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron earned for the Brazilian’s seventh place qualifying effort, “helps to stay alive” in the title race, which could see Porsche Penske Motorsport unofficially lock up the championship this weekend.

***CGR co-drivers Bourdais and Renger van der Zande now have provisionally closed to within 174 points of the championship-leading No. 7 Porsche Penske 963 of Nasr and Cameron.

***Bourdais said: “I don’t know, they always seem to come back from the dead. Every time you think they’re pretty much done, they come back and finish on the podium or win the race. It’s the beauty of IMSA; it’s never over but at the same time, they haven’t had a single bad race so far this year and already had one DNF and one that looked like a DNF. We need help for sure.”

***Mikael Grenier’s class pole in the No. 32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports entry has all but sealed the GTD manufacturers’ title for Mercedes-AMG, which will only need for its three GT entries to roll off the grid on Sunday to officially lock up the championship.

***Winward Racing, meanwhile, has a chance of clinching the GTD drivers’ championship tomorrow, with Philip Ellis and Russell Ward’s lead now extended to 282 points over the Turner Motorsport duo of Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher following qualifying. Ellis and Ward will need to leave Indy with a 385-or-larger point lead to lock up the title a full race early.

***Winward is looking to continue its GTD win streak in Michelin Endurance Cup competition, with the No. 57 entry of Russell Ward, Philip Ellis and Indy Dontje having claimed top class honors in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring and Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen this season.

***The Texas-based squad is the only team to have won all three Endurance Cup races in class to date, with Era Motorsport (Daytona, Sebring) and Porsche Penske Motorsport (Daytona, Watkins Glen) having two apiece.

***The No. 6 Penske Porsche that briefly stopped on track during second practice was an electrical issue believed to have been triggered by the car going over a curb. Mathieu Jaminet managed to bring the car back to the pit lane without drama.

***The Australian flag is adorned on the roof of the No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, which features an all-Aussie driver lineup for the first time in Kenny Habul, Chaz Mostert and Jordan Love.

***Rain is expected to play a factor in the race tomorrow, with showers forecasted to begin at 11 a.m. EDT and transition into heavy rain by the early afternoon.

***Ford Multimatic Motorsports driver Joey Hand said he expects traffic to be “hectic” in the six-hour race. “You get some guys doing some interesting things like warming tires,” he told Sportscar365. “Especially the GTP cars, when they come out on cold tires, they struggle. It causes a bit of a ripple effect for the whole lap. I for sure see it being hectic in the race. There’s just so many cars for this size of race track.”

***Hand also commented on handling traffic with the significant amount of marbles that collect on the 2.439-mile road course. “There’s spots where you’re not going to want to put yourself at all costs,” he said. “I think the entrance of Turn 4. I don’t think you’re going to want to put [yourself] wide over there. I think Turn 11, too. you could end up in the oval wall.”

***BMW Team RLL returns to the site of its most recent podium finish in WeatherTech Championship competition, with the No. 25 BMW M Hybrid of Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly having finished third in last year’s two-hour and 40-minute contest.

***Sportscar365 understands there will be at least one change in Team RLL’s driver lineup next year, with one of its existing drivers poised to join Meyer Shank Racing’s Acura ARX-06 operation. Driver announcements from the Ohio-based team are not expected to be made until after the completion of the season.

***JDC-Miller Motorsports team principal John Church indicated there’s no update regarding the prospects of the team fielding a second Porsche next year. The team’s No. 85 entry has already been confirmed by IMSA for a full-season return, although drivers have yet to be announced.

***Multiple teams are at play for the Genesis LMDh program in the WeatherTech Championship, with Sportscar365 understanding that Chip Ganassi Racing and Bryan Herta Autosport are currently two of the leading contenders for the factory GTP effort that’s slated to debut in 2026.

***BHA team principal Bryan Herta confirmed to Sportscar365 that they have “expressed interest” although a final decision has yet to be made. BHA has operated Hyundai’s Michelin Pilot Challenge TCR program with numerous drivers’, teams’ and manufacturers’ championships to its name.

***Herta told Sportscar365: “We’re very proud of our relationship with Hyundai and we would very much like to be a part of the Genesis project when it comes to the States but those are things that are still being decided [and] discussed. Nothing to report there.”

***NBC Sports’ coverage of the Battle on the Bricks will begin Sunday at 11:30 a.m. EDT on Peacock before expanding to network NBC at 3 p.m. Dave Burns and Brian Till will be joined in the booth by Calvin Fish, Townsend Bell and James Hinchcliffe, with Georgia Henneberry, Matt Yocum and Hannah Newhouse on pit lane.

***IMSA Radio’s regular team of John Hindhaugh, Jeremy Shaw and Shea Adam will provide coverage on multiple platforms, including IMSA’s YouTube channel for international viewers.

Jonathan Grace 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