Eng Leads Opening Hour from Tenth on Grid at Indianapolis

Photo: Brian Cleary/SRO

Philipp Eng led at the end of the opening hour of the Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS, going from tenth on the grid to the front, aided by an incident for the pole-sitting No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Lin Hodenius.

Eng held a Random Vandals Racing 1-2, with his No. 51 BMW M4 GT3 EVO with a 5.736-second lead over the No. 99 BMW of Kenton Koch.

The Silver-rated Dutchman initially controlled the opening stages of the Intercontinental GT Challenge and GT World Challenge America powered by AWS season finale but came under pressure from Eng, who lost pole due to a technical infraction was forced to start tenth.

Eng impressively moved his way to fifth by just the opening lap and got around teammate, and GTWC Pro class points leader Koch, for second on Lap 23.

However, contact between Hodenius and the No. 61 Earl Bamber Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R of Adrian D’Silva at the end of the hour resulted in a drive-through penalty for the Lone Star Mercedes-AMG, which dropped him to 12th in the overall order.

Maro Engel ran third at the one-hour mark in the No. 888 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG, ahead of the No. 77 Team WRT BMW of Al Faisal Al Zubair and Mikael Grenier, in fourth, with the No. 34 JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG completing the top-five.

Patric Niederhauser was out front tin the Pro-Am class in the No. 10 Wright Motorsports Porsche in sixth overall, ahead of Valentino Rossi, in his four-wheeled debut at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, who ran seventh in the No. 46 WRT BMW.

The No. 6 Dollahite Racing Ford Mustang GT3 of Scott Dollahite, who was forced to start 22nd after being demoted from a 12th place qualifying run due to not running its declared driver order in qualifying, led the Am class and moved up to 17th overall.

There was an early issue for the No. 50 Chouest Povoledo Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Ross Chouest, who was tagged by Marciello Hahn’s No. 16 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 on the second lap.

Chouest spun twice in his attempt to bring his Pro-Am entry back to pit lane with a left-rear puncture caused by the incident, while Hahn was handed a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.

The Brazilian’s race went from bad to worse when he drove off course and picked up an advertising banner that ultimately forced him to drive into the Turn 1 run-off area to get rid of the banner.

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