Van der Linde: No. 46 BMW Was On “Lucky End” for Victory

Photo: Sam Cobb/BMW

Kelvin van der Linde believes his No. 46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO was on the “lucky end” of things in Saturday’s Indianapolis 8 Hour powered by AWS, which saw a strategic call help propel the South African to the win and the Intercontinental GT Challenge drivers’ championship.

Van der Linde and co-drivers Charles Weerts and Valentino Rossi took victory in the weather-impacted season finale, which was red-flagged for two-and-a-half hours and run behind the safety car for all but two laps in the final 90 minutes.

While having moved his car up to second, passing the No. 888 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Luca Stolz just moments before the race went under full-course caution for weather, and quickly turned into a red flag, it was a strategic call to undercut the sister No. 777 BMW of Raffaele Marciello during the race’s resumption under the safety car that ultimately gave the No. 46 car the win.

Van der Linde was the only car called into the pits with just over 65 minutes remaining to reset his maximum stint length, which gave him the lead when Marciello and the remainder of the Pro class contenders pitted on the following lap.

The race restarted for two green flag laps until the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG of Jules Gounon got stranded at pit-in with 37 minutes to go, which at that point the rain had re-intensified and the race ended under yellow.

“It was a bit of an anti-climax to be honest, not the way we want to win a race or decide a race with almost two hours of safety car,” van der Linde told Sportscar365.

“To be honest that strategy [to pit a lap earlier for the stint reset] was a bit of luck.

“Some years you have the luck, some years not. We’ve seen it decide races in the past and we were on the lucky end today.”

It marked van der Linde’s fourth win out of five races in the IGTC season and puts him alone as the most winningest driver in the globe-trotting GT3 series’ history with seven total victories.

“I’m very proud of [winning] four out of five this year and got to thank all my teammates that helped me on the way,” he said.

“Starting in Bathurst, the dream start with BMW and to bring it home for BMW Motorsport in the manufacturers’ championship means a lot.

“It’s very special but especially in my first year with BMW, I never expected to be quite so successful.

“Therefore I’m very proud of everybody. But also it’s a credit to all my teammates that helped me.

“I didn’t win this one alone. It’s a shame we have to split the points in the end.”

Brake, Clutch Issues Nearly Derailed Race, Championship-Winning Run

Van der Linde revealed that the No. 46 BMW was nursing a number of issues near the halfway point of the race, right before the lengthy red flag.

He suggested that the car may have not been able to make it to the finish had the race run green following the initial restart behind the safety car with 1 hour and 31 minutes to go.

“To be honest we were a little bit saved by the safety car because we had a lot of issues on the brakes throughout the race and we had a clutch that was starting to fail,” said van der Linde.

“Before the red we had our brakes going down and the pedal going super long.

“Then the clutch started slipping and we were actually scared the clutch was going to give up if it was a full green race in the end.

“It’s mixed emotions to be honest, for everybody.”

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