Gounon Quickest in Indianapolis Free Practice

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Jules Gounon led the way in Free Practice for Saturday’s Intercontinental GT Challenge and GT World Challenge America season-ending Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS.

Gounon, who only arrived at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this evening following Mercedes-AMG testing commitments in France, reeled off a chart-topping 1:23.215 lap time in the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

It was 0.074 seconds quicker than the No. 46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Kelvin van der Linde in the 90-minute nighttime session.

The No. 51 Random Vandals Racing BMW of Varun Choksey was third on the time charts, followed by the sister No. 777 WRT entry of Al Faisal Al Zubair, which made it three BMWs in the top-four.

75 Express’ Mercedes-AMG, featuring two-time NTT IndyCar Series champion and Indianapolis 500 winner Will Power, completed the top-five in the hands of Australia Supercars ace Chaz Mostert.

The No. 888 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG followed in sixth, ahead of the Pro-Am class pace-setting No. 21 Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R of Dennis Marschall in seventh overall.

Turner Motorsports’ GTWC America Pro-Am points-leading No. 29 BMW was second quickest in class with Robby Foley at the wheel, followed by the No. 16 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.

Tenth overall went to the No. 61 Earl Bamber Motorsport Porsche of Riccardo Feller, which was repaired following Adrian D’Silva’s session-ending accident in the morning’s final test session.

IGTC manufacturer-nominated cars swept the top 16 positions overall out of the 25-car GT3 field.

The two-car Am class again saw the No. 6 Dollahite Racing Ford Mustang GT3 top the time charts.

There were no red flags or any noted major incidents during the session, which started at sunset before turning into a full night session to simulate the scheduled 8:20 p.m. finish of the race on Saturday.

Dustin Blattner in the No. 21 Herberth Porsche was quickest in the paid Bronze test session, which immediately preceded Free Practice and saw a total of 15 cars take part.

75 Express’ Kenny Habul was quickest of the IGTC Independent Cup title contenders.

Pre-Qualifying is next up and set for Friday at 9:50 a.m. EST with live streaming on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel.

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