Battle on the Bricks – Syndication Server

Porsche completes full GTD sweep at the Battle on the Bricks

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.

It’s always good when the only sight your competition sees is the tail of your car. Once again Wright Motorsports bounced back from a hard recent go and slip-slided to a win at the Brickyard. Jake Galstad/Lumen

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.

RESULTS

BMW M Team RLL wins Indianapolis, TDS repeats in LMP2

BMW M Team RLL had a prior opportunity to celebrate a win, the day after it was earned. The team has now finally had a post-race celebration in the most fairytale way possible, a 1-2 finish in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s inaugural …

Philipp Eng in the No. 24 M Hybrid V8 led Connor De Phillipi in the No. 25 to the checker in the Battle on the Bricks by 1.647s to claim victory for himself and Jesse Krohn. The No. 24 had not only not captured a win prior, but its drivers had never stood on the podium. This time they stood on the top step, with De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly, who inherited a win in last year’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen after the first-on-track Porsche 963 was moved to the back for excessive skid plank wear. This was their best finish since, and the first podium this season.

“This is huge. This is what you really work for,” said team principal Bobby Rahal. “I have to say, I think going into Petit Le Mans, we have to think very positively about that. That’s a long race, as this one was. But this may be, outside of my Indy 500 win, the most important win we’ve had, and because it’s just so timely and it just represents all the effort that all of us have put in – these guys, RLL and of course BMW Motorsport. Great day for us.”

In a race punctuated by a long period of heavy rain and six full-course cautions for a total of 2h22m running under yellow, it all came down to a perfect 55-minute run to the checker after the final caution, meaning that it was nearly a straight-up fight for the GTP, GTD PRO and GTD classes, all of which can run about an hour on a full load of fuel. The leading cars had already run 15 minutes under yellow before the green flag flew, meaning it was going to be tight.

Louis Deletraz in the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 led the field to the final restart ahead of De Phillippi, but when De Phillippi got held up in the final turn leading onto the front straight, Eng had a good run and passed him into Turn 1 and headed after Deletraz.

Eng took the lead with an impressive move inside Deletraz at Turn 13 – a tight left-hander where almost no one attempts a pass – with 47m to go. De Phillippi followed him past Deletraz less than a lap later.

“I set it up already in Turn 7, I believe, and it went all the way down to Turn 12,” Eng explained of the pass for the lead. “I just tried to get a good exit out of Turn 12. In the laps earlier, I saw that he always tried a round line into that corner, into Turn 13. Once I was as close as I was, that lap, I just took a chance and went for it, and it paid off. He was very fair. Very hard racing, but very fair racing with him.”

Deletraz was holding station – and holding off Mathieu Jaminet – behind the BMWs until, with less than half an hour left, he had contact with the No. 75 SunEnergy1 Mercedes AMG GT3 driven by Chaz Mostert, knocking the Mercedes off track. Deletraz received a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility, taking the No. 40 out of the fight.

From there, the two BMWs simply had to hold off Jaminet while making sure they could go to the end on fuel.

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“There was a lot of talk about the fuel, what the competitors are doing and how much fuel we have to save if we are going to make it at some point,” said Krohn. “It sounded like there’s no chance, but Philipp just drove on fumes. I don’t know how he had the pace with the fuel numbers he was achieving, but this was really a great, great drive by Philipp and shows what a driver he is.”

Jaminet held on for third for himself and Nick Tandy, with the No. 85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 of Tijmen van der Helm, Richard Westbrook and Phil Hanson scoring fourth ahead of the No. 40 Acura driven by Deletraz and Jordan Taylor. The good result for the No. 6, along with trouble for the sister No. 7 and the No. 01 Cadillac Racing crew turned the championship into a two-way, intra-squad fight at Motul Petit Le Mans.

Felipe Nasr, who qualified the No. 7 963 in eighth, made a quick charge to the front at the start, but his efforts were for naught after a drive-through penalty for a pass under yellow and a later trip through the gravel. Nasr and Dane Cameron ended up ninth, several laps down, after the car stopped on the front straight, bringing out the final caution of the race with 1h15m left in the contest. Nasr got going again but the struggles continued.

Hope for victory for the polesitting No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, which had certainly been a contender, ended with a right rear puncture just after what would have been the car’s penultimate pit stop as Renger van der Zande handed the car back to Sebastien Bourdais. As Bourdais was trying to turn into Turn 12, the low tire made him miss the corner and continue on the oval. Because pit-in is at Turn 13, Bourdais had to go around slowly with a tire shredding the bodywork. A new tire, rear wing and bodywork solved the problem but Bourdais was three laps down by the time he was back on track and up to speed.

With trouble for two of the championship contenders, plus a DNF for the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, Cameron and Nasr only have a 14-point lead over Jaminet and Tandy. Everyone else is effectively out of the fight.The only way Cadillac Racing can win the title is if neither PPM Porsche starts at Petit Le Mans.

The No. 63 Lamborghini Iron Lynx SC63 had its best IMSA race since its Sebring debut, including leading a number of laps and being the fastest car in the wet in the hands of Romain Grosjean. In tricky, changing – but always wet – conditions, Grosjean worked magic to get the SC63 to the front, although slight contact with then-leader Jaminet in the No. 6 963 helped. A penalty for too many crew over the wall during a pit stop hurt the team’s chances, but it was still running strong before the run ended when Andrea Caldarelli had contact with the No. 55 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 and broke the SC63’s right-rear suspension.

Nothing could be sweeter than going back-to-back at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and TDS Racing managed to do just that. Jake Galstad/Lumen

TDS Racing is now two-for-two in LMP2 at Indianapolis after Mikkel Jensen, Steven Thomas and Hunter McElrea used strategy and the yellow flag pass-arounds to recover from being a lap down and take the victory over the polesitting and championship-leading Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports squad of Nick Boulle, Tom Dillmann and Jakub Smiechowski.

“I think this is a very satisfying race,” said Thomas. “Whenever a Bronze is driving around the rain, everyone’s pretty nervous, so it was a lot of fun for me. I love the rain, so it was a great experience today. Now we’re tied for first place in the Endurance Cup, so we really have something to shoot for at Petit Le Mans, one of my favorite tracks.

“The emotions of coming back here and being able to kiss the bricks again, one of the highlights in my recent career, and to be able to do it with Mikkel Jensen, who I think is the best P2 driver in the world — maybe the best WEC driver in the world too — and Hunter, who has proven to be the fastest silver, it’s really been a pleasure driving with them,” he continued.

McElrea proved critical to the victory, thanks to his experience in the rain at Indianapolis, where he’s raced in Indy NXT and other series on the open-wheel ladder.

“Steven has given me a very good opportunity to where I’ve had a lot of testing, so I don’t necessarily feel like I’m unprepared when I come to the race, but I’ve never driven any track on the schedule, apart from here,” McElrea said.

“Indy lights, the car’s a little different to P2 in a way, but similar. I didn’t want to assume that we’re going to be fast, but I kind of knew halfway through the first day of testing we were doing … ‘Okay, we just need to get the basics right, and we’ll probably win. It’s never easy, but the pace will be there.’ It helped me a lot, I would say, truthfully. Even in the wet, knowing where the grip was … I had a really fun stint in the wet, and it was all stuff I already knew, which was nice, because usually I’m just trying stuff and learning on the go.”

Era Motorsport had its own difficulties to overcome to claim a third-place finish for Dwight Merriman, Ryan Dalziel and Connor Zilisch. Third keeps them in the fight for the championship, even as Boulle and Dillmann stretched their lead.

The No. 99 AO Racing ORECA was running second in the final stint until Nicklas Nielsen in the No. 88 AF Corse ORECA, which was a lap down, hit the No. 99 and spun Matt Brabham, knocking him down to fifth, a long way back. Then trouble hit the No. 22 United Autosports entry when the No. 18 Era Motorsports ORECA driven by Connor Zilisch had contact with Paul Di Resta in the No. 22. The United Autosports car had tire rub and had to visit the pits, and Era’s attempt to pull itself from a lap down into the fight was ended with a drive-through penalty, but it was still a valuable third-place finish.

A tough race for the No. 74 Riley crew of Felipe Fraga, Gar Robinson and Josh Burdon, along with the second-place finish for Inter Europol mean Boulle and Dillmann extended their championship lead to 98 over Fraga and Robinson. Dalziel sits third, another 25 points back.

RESULTS

BMW finally breaks through to win a 1-2 at the Battle on the Bricks

BMW M Team RLL finally took an on-track victory in the most spectacular way possible – a 1-2 finish in the inaugural six-hour race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Philipp Eng and Jesse Krohn led the sister No. 25 of …

BMW M Team RLL finally took an on-track victory in the most spectacular way possible — a 1-2 finish in the inaugural six-hour race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Philipp Eng and Jesse Krohn led the sister No. 25 of Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly home by 1.647s.

Yelloly and De Phillippi inherited a victory in last year’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen after the winning Porsche was moved to the back for too much skidplank wear, but this was the first time the team claimed a win at the checker. Not only was it the first win for the No. 24 in the new GTP era, it was the first time the No. 24 crew stood on the podium.

Eng took the lead with an impressive move inside Louis Deletraz in the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 at Turn 13 – a tight left-hander where almost no one attempts a pass – with 47m to go. De Phillippi followed him past Deletraz less than a lap later.

It left Jaminet in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 he shared with Nick Tandy in third. With trouble for both the PPM No. 7 and the No. 01 Cadillac, the fight for the championship heading to Petit Le Mans is solely between the two PPM cars.

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TDS Racing is now two-for-two at Indianapolis in LMP2 after Mikkel Jensen, Steven Thomas and Hunter McElrea used strategy and the yellow flag pass-arounds to recover from being a lap down and take the victory over the polesitting and championship-leading Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports squad of Nick Boulle, Tom Dillmann and Jakub Smiechowski.

Era Motorsport had its own difficulties to overcome to claim a third-place finish for Dwight Merriman, Ryan Dalziel and Connor Zilisch and stay in the fight for the championship, even as Boulle and Dillmann stretched their lead.

In GTD PRO, AO Racing recovered nicely in the race after the No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R was moved to the back of the field for not meeting minimum ground clearance rules in qualifying. Laurin Heinrich and Michael Christensen moved steadily through the field, claimed the lead in the final pit stop and drove to a 12.527s victory. The No. 64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3 claimed the car’s best finish after Mike Rockenfeller and Harry Tincknell starting second and finished second, ahead of Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims in the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R.

There was another breakthrough win in GTD as Adam Adelson and Elliot Skeer took their first victory with Jan Heylen alongside. 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 much of the race, with Heylen 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. 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.

Full reports to follow

RESULTS

IMSA impounds GTP field at Indy for in-depth homologation checks

IMSA has taken the unique step of placing its WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP field in a special impound immediately following Sunday’s six-hour Battle On The Bricks endurance race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The routing of the …

The routing of the hybrid-powered marquee class into “parc ferme” is being done to conduct extensive technical inspections of the cars in “as raced” condition to perform stringent checks of each model’s bodywork, powertrain, suspension, and all other key systems to ensure they comply with their specific — now in their second year — homologation regulations.

The timing of the initiative spearheaded by Eric Haverson, IMSA’s director of technical compliance and scrutineering, Simon Hodgson, the senior VP of competition, and senior technical director Matt Kurdock comes as the WeatherTech Championship heads into its season finale across October 10-12 at Motul Petit Le Mans with the impetus to confirm or correct any areas of regulatory compliance prior to the crowning of drivers’, teams’, and manufacturers’ champions.

Random areas are chosen for deeper technical inspection at every race, but it’s rare to take a nose-to-tail dive into every car due to busy schedules. With weeks until the season finale, the timing was optimal to perform the in-depth reviews.

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“At the conclusion of the Battle on the Bricks, IMSA impounded selected GTP cars to conduct extended post-race technical inspection through Monday and Tuesday,” the series said in a statement, “Periodically, such as following January’s Rolex 24 At Daytona, extended technical inspections are performed by IMSA as due diligence in ensuring technical compliance. Race results will remain provisional until these inspections are completed. IMSA is committed to providing close and competitive racing for the fans and a fair and even playing field for manufacturers and competitors.”

RACER understands the series sequestered at least one Acura, BMW, Cadillac, Lamborghini, and Porsche from each of its GTP teams; the race-winning No. 24 BMW, the No. 6 Porsche from Porsche Penske Motorsport and the No. 85 Porsche from the privateer JDC Miller Motorsports team, plus the No. 40 Acura, No. 01 Cadillac, and the No. 63 Lamborghini were directed to the specific holding area for the chosen entries.

Prior to the surprise impounding, RACER also understands the series spent time reviewing the testing schedule for each GTP team’s operation to ensure the lengthy inspections do not hinder their post-Indianapolis plans.

The process will involve everything from full 3D scanning of each model’s bodywork to confirm dimensional accuracy, drivetrain teardown and legality checks, to checking part numbers and dimensions for control arms and any other items that are subject to homologation.

RACER understands that if any questions arise, IMSA will dispatch the components to the NASCAR R&D Center in North Carolina for further investigation as part of the longstanding collaboration between NASCAR and IMSA on overall technical matters.

The sizable effort to ensure IMSA’s top class is above reproach immediately follows the intensive efforts by the series in recent weeks to catalog and further benchmark its vast field of GT3-based GT Daytona entries by running models from all manufacturers through the Windshear wind tunnel in North Carolina.

Lots to consider for IMSA teams in solving Indy road course riddles

The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship teams are preparing to attack Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course for the first time since 2014, when Grand Am last visited the track. Many of the racers will be getting their first laps of the 2.439-mile, 14-turn circuit during Friday practice. But even those who have raced there previously in Grand Am or since then in GT3 cars, Indy cars or other series know that they will have a wide set of challenges to overcome.

“When you look at the track, it doesn’t look that difficult,” says Era Motorsport ORECA LMP2 driver Ryan Dalziel, who won at Indy with Starworks in 2013 and has raced at the track in recent years in GT3 cars. “But I think we would all agree that it’s actually very challenging. I think the lack of use for the road course makes it always pretty tricky, especially early sessions. I think weather always plays a factor based on the last times we were there. But it’s a busy place; other than the front straight, you don’t stop working the car.

“Do you want to run low downforce or high downforce, trying to figure out what’s the best compromise on the track? We had an interesting test there [in July] and what we thought was going to work for the P2 car did not. I’m glad that we got to do that a couple of days of testing, because we definitely rolled out of the truck with a very different car to how we plan on going back there. So, not an easy place.”

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Dalziel and Dwight Merriman are trying to haul themselves into the LMP2 title fight, currently led by Ben Keating ad Paul-Loup Chatin in the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports entry by the No. 11 TDS Racing squad of Steven Thomas and Mikkel Jensen. Cadillac Racing’s Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande have a similarly tough task to close the 118-point gap to GTP leaders Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor for Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport in the No. 10 Acura ARX-06. But Bourdais knows a thing or two about racing at the Brickyard, having won there in sports cars — also with Starworks — and racing on the road course in IndyCar.

“I think it’s also a very much of a one-groove racetrack, and every time you’re gonna have to get out of that groove — and you will have to — is going to make it very difficult,” said the Frenchman, driver of the No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R. “Marbles build up really fast. So for us in GTP, not really being much faster than the LMP2s — and certainly not being really any faster in the braking zones or the corners — the interaction is going to be quite tricky and will decide the race for sure. How easily your car lets you maneuver around people will be key.

“Technically, I think it’s also a track that’s very, very tricky, because you have very pointy apexes. You’re basically braking and shooting for a very specific point. and therefore the margin to hit the apex or not is very, very small and very critical. Because if you hit the apex, it dictates a very different corner than if you’re like a half a foot away. So it’s all kind of dictated at the turn-in point; there’s no real readjustment from there. And they’re all pretty long corners, so I think a good front end and getting the car to to maneuver around is critical.”

The only new track on the 2023 IMSA schedule comes at a crucial point in the championship, with only two races left, and it’s the final sprint race of the season (next year it will be a six-hour endurance race). The GTP points battle is quite tight, with the spread from WTRAndretti in first to Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly (No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8) in third being only 73 points.

The No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac V-Series.R squad of Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims sits in between, 14 points — less than a single race finishing position — out of first. Porsche Penske Motorsports is still in it as well, Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet being 98 points back. Bourdais and van der Zande are tied with Colin Braun and Tom Blomqvist (No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura) for fifth on points, although the MSR crew gets the edge in position thanks to having two wins.

LMP2 has a little more breathing room, Keating and Chatin being 45 points ahead of Thomas and Jensen. George Kurtz and Ben Hanley are third, another 52 points back. LMP3, which swells to nine entries for the Brickyard, has been dominated by Gar Robinson — usually with Felipe Fraga — in the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier, and he has a commanding 251-point lead over Matthew Bell and Orey Fidani (No. 13 AWA Duqueine), although the race gets tighter from there.

Vasser Sullivan’s Lexus duo of Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat bring a healthy GTD PRO lead to Indy. Michael Levitt/Lumen

Both GTD classes have been a bit of a runaway this season. Ben Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth — who scored his first IMSA victory at IMS — lead GTD PRO by 144 points for the Vasser Sullivan Lexus squad. They’re chased by the No. 3 Corvette Racing C8.R duo of Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia, who in turn have a 107-point margin to Pfaff Motorsport’s Patrick Pilet and Klaus Bachler.

Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow have steamrolled the GTD competition this season. A start at Indy will clinch them the Sprint Cup, and if they win, they will have locked up the season championship for Paul Miller Racing and BMW before Petit Le Mans. Either way, Marco Sorensen and defending champion Roman De Angelis don’t have a lot of hope for catching Snow and Sellers, with 2621 points to 2996 for the No. 1 squad. Meanwhile they need to hold off Aaron Telitz and Frankie Montecalvo (No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC-F) who are 68 points out of second, and Frederik Schandorff and Brendan Iribe, 85 points out of second in the Inception Racing McLaren 720S.

Several GTD cars got big Balance of Performance adjustments ahead of Indy. The BMW M4 GT3, Lexus and Corvette all received power reductions. The McLaren received an additional 20kg of weight, while the Mercedes-AMG GT3 lost 30kg. The Porsche 911 GT3R received both a weight increase, and an increase in restrictor size.

The action for this weekend’s Battle on the Bricks actually gets started on Thursday evening with a Street Fest on Main Street in downtown Speedway from 6 to 8pm, with the first official practice Friday afternoon. The 2h40m race is scheduled for a green flag at 1:10pm local (Eastern) time on Sunday. The WeatherTech Championship is joined at Indy by the Michelin Pilot Challenge, which will have a four-hour race on Saturday that goes into darkness. In addition, Porsche Deluxe Carrera Cup North America and Lamborghini Super Trofeo will have a pair of races each, Saturday and Sunday.

WeatherTech Championship qualifying on Saturday afternoon will be carried live on IMSA.tv. The IMPC race will be carried live on Peacock. Live, flag-to-flag coverage of the WeatherTech Championship race will be available on NBC starting at 1pm Eastern on Sunday, as well as streamed on Peacock.