Foley Beats Guven to Indianapolis 8H Pole

Photo: Sam Cobb/BMW

Robby Foley beat Ayhancan Guven by a mere 0.002 seconds to claim overall pole for Saturday’s Intercontinental GT Challenge and GT World Challenge America powered by AWS season-ending Desder Indianapolis 8 Hour.

The BMW factory driver, who along with Justin Rothberg are chasing their third consecutive GTWC America championship, reeled off a benchmark 1:22.805 in the No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 EVO in the 15-minute Superpole session at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Guven’s 1:22.807 lap in the Buc-ee’s-liveried No. 32 GMG Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo was forced to settle for second overall, but Pro-Am class pole honors in the GTWC America points-leading entry.

Foley and Rothberg will share driving duties in tomorrow’s enduro with recently crowned IMSA GTD Pro champion and reigning GTWC America Pro class title-winner Connor De Phillippi.

The No. 6 Dollahite Racing Ford Mustang GT3 EVO of Chris Mies qualified third with a lap that was just 0.063 seconds slower than Foley. It came after the car encountered brake issues in qualifying but Mies managed to keep the car in the runoff and crucially not bring out a red flag that would have eliminated his two fastest laps.

Alessio Picariello in the No. 8 McCann Racing Porsche was fourth, with Aaron Telitz completing the top-five in the No. 69 Archangel Motorsports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.

Frederik Schandorff was sixth in the No. 12 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo, ahead of Alex Palou, who was quickest of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos in the No. 80 Lone Star Racing example.

Mikael Grenier qualified the No. 34 JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG in eighth, ahead of Mikael Grenier’s Pro-Am JMF entry and the No. 28 RS1 Porsche of Jan Heylen, who completed the top-ten.

Six different GT3 brands made it into the top-ten, which was separated by less than nine-tenths.

The seventh and currently final scheduled Desder Indianapolis 8 Hour is scheduled for a 12:30 p.m. start on Saturday with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel.

RESULTS: Superpole

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