Iribe, Inception’s First GTD Win ‘A Long Time Coming’

Photo: Inception Racing

Inception Racing’s first triumph in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship has been a ‘long time coming’ according to Brendan Iribe, who broke through to score his maiden GTD class win after 37 previous attempts.

The Bronze-rated driver and longtime teammates Ollie Millroy and Frederik Schandorff came out on top in Sunday’s Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, exactly one year after its switch from McLaren 720S GT3 Evo to Ferrari 296 GT3 machinery in the series.

While the Bas Leinders-led squad took GTD victory in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at Mid-Ohio in 2022 with its McLaren, they lost the win in post-race technical inspection, and haven’t been back to victory lane since.

More three years later, the victory at The Brickyard was made official, and all three drivers got to kiss the bricks.

“I think we’ve been working on it for a long time, and the team has been continuing to get better, and we have been getting our heads around the Ferrari,” said Iribe.

“I think they did a remarkable job, really getting up to speed quick.

“We’ve shown that we have one of the most competitive if not the most competitive Ferrari on the grid, and the drivers have just done an incredible job themselves pushing forward.

“It’s great to be here and great to be in the Ferrari.”

Millroy added: “We had a successful run with the McLaren for a couple of years and then we switched to the Ferrari actually at Indianapolis last year was our first race with the Ferrari.

“So it was a huge task for the team to get their head around the car.

“But we’ve been really fast and competitive most of this season. It just shows what an amazing job the team and the engineering team as well have done with the car.”

The British squad debuted its Ferrari at Indianapolis last year and has made gradual progress with the new platform since.

“It’s a very different philosophy to the McLaren,” explained Millroy. “We kind of went into it thinking, ‘Oh, it should be quite similar, engine is roughly the same place, it kind of looks similar.’

“You’re not going from a mid engine to a front engine car or anything like that.

“Actually because obviously it’s been built and designed by ORECA, who are prototype manufacturers, it’s actually a very different philosophy.

“We were okay here last year. We struggled a bit for pace. Then we went to Petit Le Mans, and Fred and I got out of the car after FP1 and I think neither of us ever wanted to get back in a race car ever again; it was terrifying.

“So we realized what we thought we’d learnt from Indy was probably the wrong way, so then we went back for the race, and actually in Petit Le Mans the thing was on rails.

“It was a great car to drive and we saw then the potential of the Ferrari.

“It’s still a relatively new car anyway, especially to us, but obviously it’s only in its second season, so there’s still some teething problems which we’re figuring out and Ferrari are figuring out.

“But generally on the whole the performance that we’ve had throughout the season has been really strong.

“It’s been a massive task for the team, and they’ve done a really great job.”

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