Indianapolis Post-Race Notebook

Photo: Brian Cleary/SRO

***A new Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS distance record of 799.95 miles was achieved by the overall winning N0. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Raffaele Marciello, Dani Juncadella and Daniel Morad. The race featured only two full course caution periods.

***Mercedes-AMG clinched the Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli manufacturers’ title with one round to spare, in what its Customer Racing boss Stefan Wendl said was the “logical consequence of a historic and unique season.” The brand continued its streak of wins, following SunEnergy1 Racing’s triumph at the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour and victory at the TotalEnergies 24 Hours of Spa by Akkodis ASP.

***While SunEnergy1 Racing also locked up the Pro-Am Challenge championship, the Pro class title will go down to December’s season-ending Gulf 12 Hours between Mercedes-AMG drivers Juncadella, Jules Gounon, Marciello and Luca Stolz.

***Juncadella has taken a three-point lead over Gounon, with Marciello 18 points back in third and Stolz 25 behind the Spaniard. This does not factor in the one drop-race for each driver, which will only be determined following the results of the around-the-clock enduro at Yas Marina Circuit.

***Gounon was denied a chance of a fourth consecutive IGTC win after getting trapped behind the safety car while under the race’s second full course caution in the No. 33 Winward Racing Mercedes. Unlike last year’s race, wave-bys were not written into the sporting regulations.

***The Frenchman wrote on social media: “Very hard to swallow as the race director decided to change his way of managing the wave by under [safety car] period during the race. They picked us up as the leader, where in a matter of fact we were P3. In reaction of this action, This put us a lap down when we exited the pit lane 9 [seconds] behind the leader of the race. Always hard to accept an unfair decision but it’s the way life is sometimes.”

***The first yellow, for the crashed No. 1 K-PAX Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo of Marco Mapelli in the fifth hour, however, led to a wave-by procedure but this is understood to have only occured because of being classified as an “emergency yellow” due to the nature of the accident where the safety car picked up the first available car.

***It had put the No. 33 Winward Mercedes of Philip Ellis, No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 of John Edwards and Samantha Tan’s No. 38 ST Racing BMW all back onto the lead lap, although none of the cars factored into the overall win.

***Kenny Habul thought the Pro-Am class-winning No. 94 BimmerWorld BMW M4 of Bill Auberlen was “really out of line” in the closing laps, which saw the battle for the overall win mixed in with the top two runners in Pro-Am. “He refused to move over for the [overall] leader and for the Ferrari and held him up, and in my opinion should have been black-flagged,” Habul told Sportscar365.

***Antonio Fuoco, who finished second overall in the No. 71 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020, briefly got held up by the No. 75 SunEnergy1 Mercedes of Dominik Baumann after Marciello went by. Fuoco said: “I think it’s part of the game. It’s not fair but I think if we were on the opposite side of the race we maybe would have done the same.”

***The SunEnergy1 Mercedes, which finished second amongst the combined IGTC/Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS Pro-Am entries, lost nearly a lap to the BimmerWorld BMW, which capitalized on the second yellow to make a pit stop. “At the end of the day, yellow flags are like playing roulette in the casino. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t,” said Habul.

***Auberlen and Chandler Hull continued their undefeated run in the Indianapolis 8 Hour with the Pro-Am win. The BimmerWorld duo picked up GT4 class honors in the event in 2020 and 2021 in a BMW M4 GT4.

***GT4 cars were not permitted in this year’s race and will not be for the foreseeable future according to SRO Motorsports Group founder and CEO Stephane Ratel, who confirmed that GT2 cars will be eligible to join GT3 machinery in next year’s race as part of SRO’s full-season IGTC commitment to the platform in 2023.

***The No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari, which topped both Free Practice and qualifying, finished eighth overall on Saturday after encountering ABS failure nearly from the early stages of the race. Alessandro Balzan led for 19 laps in the opening hour before the gremlin, triggered by an issue with the wheel speed sensors.

***Despite a challenging race from K-PAX Racing, Lamborghini took its second consecutive GTWC America manufacturers’ championship, thanks to fourth place points for the No. 3 K-PAX entry of Misha Goikhberg, Franck Perera and Jordan Pepper, with the South African finishing second in the Pro championship to Andrea Caldarelli, who previously clinched the title.

***K-PAX’s No. 1 Lamborghini crashed out after a puncture in the high-speed final corner for Marco Mapelli. It came just laps after the car had pitted with a similar right-rear puncture. “The race did not go our way today,” said program manager Darren Law. “We had some struggles. But again, the main goal was to bring in these championships for everybody.”

***The lone Silver class No. 38 ST Racing BMW was handed a post-race time penalty equivalent to a drive-through for its final pit stop being 1.2 seconds under the minimum of 92 seconds. It promoted the Pro-Am championship-winning No. 93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 to a ninth place overall result.

***Ashton Harrison, who teamed with Mario Farnbacher, became the first female GTWC America champion.

***Five cars failed to finish, including the No. 6 US RaceTronics Mercedes (splitter damage), No. 39 Stephen Cameron Racing Mercedes (engine) as well as the No. 63 DXDT Racing Mercedes and No. 23 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari, which collided in Turn 1 with less than three hours to go.

***Patrick Assenheimer was deemed “wholly responsible” for the incident with Alessio Rovera, which resulted in a post-race time penalty equivalent to a stop-and-hold plus 60-second penalty to the No. 63 Mercedes, which swapped chassis after the Silver-rated driver’s incident in Free Practice that damaged the engine.

***Two sets of race results were published, with 14 cars on the IGTC results sheet and 21 of the 25 starters in the GTWC America classification. A combined race results document is not available.

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