Craft-Bamboo Leads Qualifying as Pole Shootout Places Set

Craft-Bamboo Racing led a one-two for Mercedes-AMG in qualifying for the Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS as the top 10 cars advanced to the pole-deciding shootout.

Maximilian Goetz, Raffaele Marciello and Jules Gounon combined for the best three-driver average time of 1:23.048 in the No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

Goetz finished second behind Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM Racing driver Maro Engel in the opening session, before Marciello beat Luca Stolz to put Craft-Bamboo on top of the intermediate average times by 0.041 seconds.

Marciello was the only Craft-Bamboo driver to lead a session, with the Swiss driver narrowly beating Ben Tuck in the Pro-Am Aston Martin Vantage GT3 from TRG.

The third outing saw Gounon consolidate the No. 77 car’s lead as he finished second to Laurin Heinrich, whose time of 1:22.516 was the fastest lap in all of qualifying.

All four Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli Pro cars made it through to the shootout, with the BMW M4 GT3s from Team WRT finishing third and fourth in the combined times.

Philipp Eng, Sheldon van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor were the quickest WRT lineup, just under a quarter of a second off the pace.

Three Pro-Am cars advanced to Superpole, while the Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS Pro entries from Racers Edge Motorsports, MDK Motorsports and Conquest Racing failed to make the cut.

The successful Pro-Ams were the Sky-Tempesta Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 in tenth, the ST Racing BMW in ninth, and the seventh-placed Huber Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R that topped the final session in Heinrich’s hands.

The Fanatec GT Pro-class Porsches from RS1 Racing and Wright Motorsports, as well as the BimmerWorld BMW, also reached the final stage of qualifying.

Qualifying determined the starting positions of the cars that did not reach the shootout, which gets underway at 6:45 p.m. EDT.

RESULTS: Qualifying (Combined)