Pepper Tops Friday Test Session at IMS

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

K-PAX Racing’s Jordan Pepper led the way in the opening session of the day for Indianapolis 8 Hour competitors, putting Bentley atop the time charts at The Brickyard.

The South African reeled off a best lap of 1:23.035 in the No. 7 Bentley Continental GT3 to go quickest in Friday’s paid test session, 0.065 seconds faster than the No. 1 Squadra Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 of Alessandro Balzan.

Jan Heylen was third quickest overall in the No. 20 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R followed by the No. 30 Honda Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo, driven this weekend by Dane Cameron, Renger van der Zande and Mario Farnbacher.

The No. 31 Team Hardpoint WRT Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo completed the top-five overall in the 75-minute session.

All 12 of the entered GT3 cars turned laps on the 2.4-mile road course, some for the first time following Thursday’s Bronze test that was limited to just a handful of cars.

Quickest of the GT4 cars in Friday’s test was the No. 33 NotLad by RS1 Aston Martin Vantage GT4.

A total of 16 of the 22 cars entered set times in the optional session, ahead of the start of official track action with Free Practice at 1:40 p.m. EDT.

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