WRT dominates Indianapolis 8 Hour

BMW is known for having dominant runs at the Indianapolis 8 Hour, and despite some setbacks over the Saturday (7) afternoon, the No. 30 BMW M4 GT3 of Philipp Eng, Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde won with authority as it always had the pace to be comfortably in front of the competition from Intercontinental GT Challenge and FANATEC GT World Challenge America.
 
It took only one straight for the No. 20 Huber Porsche to lose the overall lead as the No. 30 WRT BMW passed from the outside while the rest of the positions remained majorly unchanged in a peaceful start. Eventually the No. 31 BMW took second place and then WRT got control of the race while the rest of the top contenders was taking a measured approach.
 
After a Safety Car period caused by the No. 91 DXDT Mercedes, the No. 31 WRT BMW took the lead, but a bump from the No. 30 took it out of the route and out of the lead, only to recover some minutes later as race control interpreted it as avoidable contact.
 
The GTWC America Pro Cup was pretty active until the halfway part, with the No. 94 Bimmerworld BMW having the lead before the No. 28 RS1 Porsche have the domination, only to concede to the No. 45 Wright Porsche, although the top-4 of the class were separated by only a few meters during during the three hours of racing.
 
The Pro-Am Cup had the No. 20 Huber Porsche in the lead until the second hour, but Antares Au couldn’t keep the pace that Laurin Heinrich was imposing and dropped out of the class top-5, with the No. 120 Wright Porsche taking the lead .
 
With few minutes past the third hour, it came a rare blow into the WRT camp, as a stint time violation sent the No. 30 BMW to a drive through penalty, relinquishing the lead to the No. 31 WRT BMW and the second place to the No. 77 CRAFT Bamboo Mercedes, but even the No. 999 GruppeM Mercedes had time to pass the No. 30. With the pace advantage that the BMW M4 GT3s were having, the No. 30 WRT BMW eventually got back to second place, but with 30 seconds of deficit to the sister No. 31 car.
 
With a bit more than 2 hours to go another blow to WRT appeared  as Augusto Farfus was dealing with the backmarking traffic ahead, only to make heavy contact with the No. 33 Triarsi Ferrari, which left the BMW’s left front suspension arm totally bent, with the No. 31 WRT BMW being barely brought to the pits to try some repair work and maybe put the car back on track.
 
The No. 30 WRT BMW kept faster laps in the remaining hours of the race, with the No. 77 closer of falling prey of the No. 999 GruppeM Mercedes than being able to battle for the lead, so the positions remained the same until the checkered flag. The No. 45 Wright Porsche was completely dominant since the middle of the race and won the GTWC America Pro Cup, while the No. 04 Crowdstrike Mercedes controlled the Pro-Am Cup in the final hours and prevented the class win of a No. 20 Huber Porsche that was in full recovery mode that ended with second place finish in class.
 
Indianapolis 8 Hour -  Race results
 
RS1 took the GTWC America Pro Cup title with Eric Filguerias and Stevan McAleer, while the Pro-Am Cup title went to Crowdstrike by Riley, Colin Braun and George Kurtz.
 
The IGTC calendar still has a round to go in the 2023 season, with the Gulf 12 Hours being held at Abu Dhabi on 10 December, which will be the last edition of the race in the IGTC calendar.
 
PHOTO: SRO/Fabian Lagunas