Vanier Wins Race 1 in Indy for JDX Racing

Zachary Vanier secured his second win of the Porsche Carrera Cup North America season for JDX Racing at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Friday’s Race 1.

Aaron Jeansonne led the field to the green flag for the first time in his career, but Vanier muscled his way into the lead from the second row of the grid on the opening lap in the No. 9 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup Car just before the field fell under yellow.

The JDX driver’s move passed the Kellymoss driver caught the eye of race control, through resulted in no action being taken.

Vanier held the lead on the restart with Ryan Yardley charging his way past Jeansonne and into second place before the field went behind the safety car again a lap later.

Despite maintaining a consistent sub-one-second gap to Vanier when racing resumed, the Topp Racing driver was unable to challenge for the lead, leaving the JDX driver to take the checkered flag 0.428 seconds clear of the new Pro class points leader Yardley.

Jeansonne finished third overall in the No. 24 Porsche with fellow Kellymoss driver Riley Dickinson fourth. JTR Motorsports Engineering’s Jared Thomas rounded out the top five.

GMG Racing came out on top in Pro-Am, with Patrick Mulcahy making up significant ground, climbing 12 total positions in the race to finish in the overall top ten, despite having started fourth in class in 22nd.

Scott Blind won out in the Masters class after leading every lap from pole position in his points-leading No. 45 Ruckus Racing Porsche.

The race fell under yellow on Lap 1, when ACI Motorsports’ JP Martinez went off track at full speed, becoming buried between the Turn 7 tire barriers and the concrete wall in a heavy collision, which triggered an early caution.

The Pro-Am points leader climbed from the car under his own power.

Madeline Stewart was separately involved in a collision with Michael McCann midway at Turn 7 for the first time at racing speed. John Jodoin was eventually assessed a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility with Stewart during the opening lap melee.

While under yellow, Alan Metni took to pit lane with damage to the left-rear tire of his Kellymoss Porsche.

A second yellow came out one lap after the race went green again, with Pro class competitors Matheus Leist and Yves Baltas both separately going off track, with the former tangling with Tyler Maxson and the latter with ACI stablemate Jimmy Llibre. Both incidents came under review from race control and will be reviewed post-race.

Paul Bocuse later collected a ten-second post-race time penalty for incident responsibility with Michael de Quesada. Racing resumed with less than 15 minutes to go.

Race 2 is slated for Saturday morning at 10:45 a.m. EST with live coverage on Peacock as well as Porsche Motorsport North America and IMSA’s YouTube channels.

RESULTS: Race 1