Team WRT Wins Weather-Impacted Indy 8H

Photo: Sam Cobb/BMW

Team WRT has claimed victory in a weather-impacted Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS, which ended under caution following a two-and-a-half hour red flag period that saw only two laps of green flag running following the race’s restart.

The No. 46 BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Kelvin van der Linde took the checkered flag in first after jumping the sister No. 777 BMW of Raffaele Marciello by resetting his 65-minute maximum stint length one lap earlier than the competition.

Marciello had led prior to the red-flag stoppage with 3 hours and 57 minutes to go for lightning in the area, which was prolonged for hours because of heavy rain and storms.

The race was resumed under the safety car with 1 hour and 31 minutes to go until restarting with 37 minutes to go for two green flag laps before the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Jules Gounon stopped at pit-in.

With deteriorating track conditions, the remainder of the race was run under yellow.

The strategic move by the No. 46 crew gave van der Linde the Intercontinental GT Challenge drivers’ championship, while BMW won its first-ever manufacturers’ championship in the globe-trotting GT3 series.

It marked the third consecutive win in the Indy 8 Hour for the Belgian WRT squad.

Van der Linde shared top honors with co-drivers Charles Weerts and Valentino Rossi, who claimed his first career IGTC victory and becomes the first driver to have won on two-wheeled and four-wheeled professional competition at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The No. 888 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maro Engel, Maxime Martin and Tom Kalender finished second, after Engel passed Marciello during the final stint length reset stop.

Marciello, Augusto Farfus and Al Faisal Al Zubair  completed the overall podium in third.

A last-ditch title attempt by JMF Motorsports, which stayed out during the resumption of racing and took the lead unraveled when Lucas Auer went over his stint length time before pitting and received a 35.6-second post-race time penalty, dropping him to seventh overall.

Chaz Mostert, who took the green flag restart in sixth, jumped up to fourth in the 75 Express Mercedes-AMG in the two laps of wet green flag running, but his car was served a 30-second post-race penalty for unauthorized work in pit lane during the red flag period, resulting in a sixth place result.

Mostert’s result, however, was still good enough to give team owner/driver Kenny Habul the IGTC Independent Cup championship, marking the Bronze-rated driver’s record-extending fourth class title.

Random Vandals Win GTWC America Pro Title

A fourth place overall finish was good enough for the No. 99 Random Vandals BMW of Kenton Koch and Connor De Phillippi to win the GTWC America Pro class title.

They shared the car with open-wheel ace Conor Daly in Saturday’s title-decider.

Koch made history by becoming the first driver to have won both of SRO America’s top series in the same year, having clinched the Pirelli GT4 America Silver class title earlier in the day, also in a Random Vandals BMW.

RS1’s Porsche driven by Jan Heylen, Alex Sedgwick and Alessio Picariello came home fifth overall and was second amongst the GTWC America points-paying entries.

The No. 21 Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R of Dennis Marschall, Alfred Renauer and Dustin Blattner took the Pro-Am class win with an eighth place overall result.

Marschall got around the No. 10 Wright Motorsports Porsche of Patric Niederhauser amid the brief resumption of racing, forcing the Swiss driver to finish second in class with co-drivers Antares Au and Loek Hartog.

The No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW of Robby Foley, Justin Rothberg and Patrick Gallagher finished third in class and took the GTWC America Pro-Am title in the process.

It came after a starter motor issue for the No. 11 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Alec Udell, which cost the then-class leading car 23 laps in the garage and gave Turner clear sailing to back-to-back class titles.

Am class honors in the race and the GTWC America championship went to the No. 163 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 of Ozz Negri and Jay Schreibman, who was joined by Conrad Grunewald in the eight-hour enduro.

The No. 6 Dollahite Racing Ford Mustang GT3 came home in a close second in class.

RESULTS: Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS

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