WRT Lead 1-2 at Indy 8H Halfway Point

Charles Weerts led a Team WRT one-two at the halfway point of the Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS, with the race as neutralized under the safety car for the second time.

Before the safety car, Weerts’s co-driver Sheldon van Der Linde had maintained a significant margin of over 30 seconds in the No. 31 BMW M4 GT3 over teammate Dan Harper in the No. 33 BMW that started last on the 23-car grid.

The stoppage, the second of the race, was triggered when the No. 99 Random Vandals Racing BMW came to a halt on track shortly before the halfway point with a reported fuel pump failure.

Jules Gounon ran third in the No. 130 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo after co-driver Mikael Grenier maintained a solid defense for much of the first half of the race against Harper and co-driver Augusto Farfus.

Farfus passed Grenier for second place but the No. 33 BMW had to remain in the pits for an additional five seconds for their pit stop after the start of the third hour due to an equipment infringement.

Grenier went back up to second place after both cars made their pit stops after the third hour began, but Harper maintained steady pressure on the Canadian.

Harper eventually found a way into second place after Grenier was held up behind Bill Auberlen in the No. 28 ST Racing BMW going through the final few corners before entering the main straight.

Tommy Milner held fourth in the No. 63 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R and also led the competitors competing in the Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS Pro class.

Elliott Skeer was fifth overall in the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R and is fighting Milner for the Fanatec GT America class lead.

Trent Hindman sat in sixth in the No. 85 RS1 Porsche ahead of Philipp Eng in the No. 28 ST Racing BMW in seventh and Zach Veach in the No. 93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 Evo22.

Jayden Ojeda ran ninth overall in the No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG and currently leads the Pro-Am class.

Several other cars ran into trouble in the opening half of the contest, with the No. 4 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG notably  having trouble with the Lumirank number system.

The No. 38 ST Racing BMW and No. 888 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes-AMG both lost time with fuel pump issues, while the No. 32 GMG Racing Porsche retired with a steering problem.

The Porsche had made contact with the No. 64 DXDT Racing Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, which resulted in a broken toe link for the latter.