Gounon Storms to Indy 8H Pole

Photo: Gruppe C Photography

Winward Racing has claimed pole for Saturday’s Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS in a storming late-session run by Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli points leader Jules Gounon.

The Frenchman reeled off two laps good enough for top qualifying honors in Pole Shootout, ultimately posting a 1:22.190 in his No. 33 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo in the closing minutes of the session.

Gounon was 0.052 seconds quicker than the No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 of Alessandro Balzan, whose car had topped the time charts in the preceding qualifying session.

The No. 23 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari of Alessio Rovera was third quickest, and best of the Pro-Am entries, ahead of the pair of K-PAX Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evos, which were in the hands of Jordan Pepper and Andrea Caldarelli, respectively.

Robby Foley was sixth in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3, with Mario Farnbacher seventh for Racers Edge Motorsports and Ryan Dalziel eighth in the sister Triarsi Ferrari.

Andretti Autosport x Vital Speed’s Jeff Westphal and late Pole Shootout addition Nick Wittmer, of ST Racing, completed the top-ten, meanwhile.

The start of the session was delayed by 15 minutes after the No. 77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes, No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes and No. 71 AF Corse Ferrari all rolled onto pit lane while awaiting the results of protests from the outcome of qualifying.

It’s understood SRO rejected the protests made by the teams, which had petitioned the fact that the minimum ten minutes of green flag time was not met during Q1 as defined in the event’s sporting regulations.

A full starting grid has yet to be published.

The Indianapolis 8 Hour gets underway Saturday at 12 p.m. ET with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube page.

RESULTS: Pole Shootout

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