Niederhauser Fights Off Van der Linde in Indy 8H Opening Hour

Patric Niederhauser repelled a challenge from Sheldon van der Linde in the opening hour of the Indianapolis 8 Hour powered by AWS, which saw Dan Harper fight his way into the top ten from the back of the grid.

Niederhauser’s No. 10 Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R started the race from pole position and maintained the lead as Van der Linde’s No. 31 BMW M4 GT3 moved up from fourth to second at the start.

The South African remained within striking distance of the Porsche and initially grabbed the lead into Turn 1 after 30 minutes when Niederhauser was held up in traffic.

However, Niederhauser recaptured first place with an almost identical move a lap later and opened up a gap of over a second towards the end of the opening hour, which featured the race’s first safety car.

That was triggered when the No. 8 Flying Lizard Motorsports BMW of Elias Sabo became stranded in the Turn 4 gravel after contact with SunEnergy1 Racing’s Kenny Habul.

Niederhauser was the only driver to not pit under the safety car and maintained the lead from the No. 31 BMW, now in the hands of Charles Weerts.

Jules Gounon ran in third aboard the No. 130 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, ahead of the Connor De Phillippi-driven No. 99 Random Vandals Racing BMW.

Zach Veach rounded out the top five for Racers Edge Motorsports, ahead of the No. 33 Team WRT BMW driven by Augusto Farfus.

Farfus’ co-driver Dan Harper made rapid progress in the opening hour after starting from the back following a post-qualifying engine change.

The BMW factory driver moved into the top ten after ten minutes before going on to work his way up into seventh by the time the safety car emerged.

The top ten was completed by Varun Choksey, Alec Udell, Jake Pedersen and Samantha Tan.

Notably for the battle in the Intercontinental GT Challenge drivers’ standings, the N. 32 GMG Racing Porsche pitted after 21 minutes with a puncture and now runs two laps down.

Ayhancan Guven, who is part of the Pro-Am lineup for GMG, leads the standings ahead of Team WRT’s Weerts.