Gounon, K-PAX Bentley Quickest in Free Practice at Indy

Photo: Drew Gibson/Bentley

K-PAX Racing has set the early pace at The Brickyard, with Jules Gounon quickest in Free Practice for Sunday’s Indianapolis 8 Hour.

The Frenchman took the No. 7 Bentley Continental GT3 to a quick lap of 1:23.300 in the 90-minute session, which officially kicked off track activity for this weekend’s Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli and GT World Challenge America powered by AWS enduro.

Gounon’s time was nearly three-tenths slower than co-driver Jordan Pepper’s pace-setting time from an optional test session earlier in the day.

The No. 6 Vital Speed Motorsports Ferrari 488 GT3, featuring open-wheel turned sports car ace Ryan Briscoe, was second fastest in the first official session followed by the No. 34 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 in third.

JAS Motorsport’s factory Acura NSX GT3 Evo made it four different GT3 manufacturers in the top-four, followed by the No. 35 Walkenhorst BMW, which completed the top-five.

The No. 20 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R, competing in Silver Cup this weekend, was sixth quickest thanks to Jan Heylen’s 21:239.924, ahead of the Pro-Am pace-setting No. 1 Squadra Corse Ferrari.

GT4 was again led by the Notlad Racing by RS1 Aston Martin Vantage GT4, which edged out the No. 26 Classic BMW M4 GT4 and No. 2 GMG Racing Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport in the running order.

No major incidents were reported in the session, which saw all 22 cars entered set times.

Pre-qualifying kicks off activities on Saturday at 8:30 a.m. EDT followed by qualifying at 12:10 p.m. and the Pole Shootout at 5:30 p.m., with all sessions streamed live on SRO’s GT World YouTube page.

RESULTS: Free Practice

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