Porsche may not have had its best day in GTP, but it doesn’t get much better than a double victory at Indianapolis in the GT categories. Not only did AO Racing overcome a qualifying penalty to take its third GTD PRO victory of the season, but Wright Motorsports took the GTD win, the first for Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeer, joined by Jan Heylen for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s six-hour Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Laurin Heinrich had the fastest time in Saturday’s qualifying session, but post-session tech found that the No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R didn’t meet the minimum ride height rules. Nevertheless, Heinrich and Michael Christensen recovered nicely, moving steadily through the field and drove to a 12.527s margin of victory over the No. 64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3 of Mike Rockenfeller and Harry Tincknell.
“I think starting from the very back and knowing that many cars in front of me were Bronze drivers or slower drivers, it’s easy to get overambitious,” Heinrich said of advancing through the field. “I really told myself that I want to hold a bit back and don’t rush too much because I knew it’s a long race, six hours, and we knew rain was coming. That was my approach. I wanted to get them one by one, and I think that worked out pretty well.
“Soon I realized I had good pace and fuel saved when I needed, and when I needed to attack, I took them one by one. … It’s also good for me to prove it to myself that I can do something like this.”
Rockenfeller qualified the No. 64 Mustang third, but found himself at the front after a bit of yo-yoing through the field. It was the final pit stop that proved decisive, though, as the AO crew got Christensen out of the pits in first and he used the clear track in front of him to good effect. Rockenfeller and Tincknell matched their second-place finish at VIR in the last outing.
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“Rocky had a really good start and it looked like we were capable of running up front,” said Tincknell. “The rain gradually picked up, and we made a good strategy call to go to wets. We were behind the safety car for a long time, so the team decided to box and put on new tires. I hopped into the car and the stop sent us to the back. I had a lot of fun moving through the field. This was the second time I’ve ever driven this car in the wet, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. The car performed really well and sliced through the field.
“I made it up to podium position, and we decisively changed back to slicks. That phase of the race brought us to the lead. Some lapped traffic kept me on my toes, and I was challenged by a competitor behind me. I was giving it every single ounce I could. Unfortunately, we came out of the final pit second. The car is really showing its strengths across all conditions.”
Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims in the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R took third ahead of Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3.
Heart of Racing doubled up on its GTD PRO effort by moving the second Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo from GTD, but still the best that Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas could do was fifth in the No. 23 Aston. It allowed Heinrich and AO to stretch their championship lead over Gunn and Heart of Racing to 99 points. A tough day for the No. 01 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 meant an eighth-place finish for Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow and Neil Verhagen, all but eliminating Sellers and Snow from the championship as they now have a 219-point deficit going into Petit Le Mans.
The No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R had an impressive debut at Daytona, but the mid-season has been fraught with struggles. The No. 120 led the class for most of the Indy race, with Heylen driving the final stint and taking a 2.465s victory over a charging Robby Foley in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 he shared with Patrick Gallagher and Jake Walker.
Adelson started 15th in the 22-car GTD field, but advanced steadily to hand the car to Heylen in fifth. Heylen took it to the front before turning it over to Skeer for a double stint before taking the car to the finish. Overall, the No. 120 Porsche led 140 laps of the 207 they completed.
“Usually, it’s just survive and stay on the lead lap and try to stay as high up in the pack as you can,” Adelson said. “Today I really felt like I made a difference. The driver order, after that, just with the yellows and the rain, it just made sense to keep me in for the first 1h30m, 1h40m, and hand off to Jan and have Elliott double and have Jan finish because we wanted him to finish.”
“Adam was definitely in the most changing conditions out there, and ultimately he did an unbelievable job driving through the field in the middle of the rain and chaos to put us in a strong position. Then it became the job of both Jan and myself just to minimize any losses,” added Skeer.
The drivers hadn’t really been comfortable with the car after missing most of the first practice session due to contact. Even in qualifying, they felt they still hadn’t made the right calls. For the race, the car was great in all conditions.
“I think we really didn’t have the right setup on the car, and we didn’t get it right for qualy either, so we kind of threw the kitchen sink at it … but in a very calculated way with a lot of intent in every single change,” Adelson said. “I have to give a really strong shout out to the guys at Wright Motorsports because they really pulled a rabbit out of the hat with that one and gave us an incredible, incredible car that worked great in the dry, worked great in the wet. It was comfortable to drive. It was just amazing.”
Kenton Koch, Mikael Grenier and Mike Skeen finished third in the No. 32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes AMG that saw its first victory in the most recent race at VIR, ahead of the No. 78 Forte Racing Lamborghini Huracan driven by Loris Spinelli, Misha Goikhberg and Devlin DeFrancesco. Championship leaders Winward Racing with Russell Ward, Philip Ellis and Indy Dontje were fifth.
That fifth-place finish means Ward and Ellis don’t go into the finale with the championship in hand, but they only need to start the race to secure the title.