The Indianapolis 8 Hour was the round to close the curtains for both the Intercontinental GT Challenge and the FANATEC GT World Challenge America, and while they were mostly worried with their own affairs, competitors from the two series fought fiercely for the overall win and the class honors, with the No. 31 WRT BMW M4 GT3 of Charles Weerts, Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde barely beating the No. 120 Wright Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3R of Adam Adelson, Elliott Skeer and Laurin Heinrich due to a late penalty, with both entries lifting titles at Indiana.
The No. 10 Herberth Porsche kept the lead at the start but it had the company of the No. 31 WRT BMW as the No. 120 Wright Porsche fell to third and then fourth with the No. 99 Random Vandals BMW finding a way past too, and eventually, Adam Adelson would lose the GTWCA Pro Cup lead to the No. 28 ST Racing BMW.
After spending the first hour behind the No. 10, the No. 31 WRT BMW looked like it was out of the leash as it conquered the lead after the first pit window, always having a comfortable gap to the No. 130 GruppeM Mercedes, which was actually falling more and more in the radar of the No. 33 WRT BMW, with the full attack starting on hour 3 as Augusto Farfus was pressing Mikael Grenier really hard, taking advantage of a backmarker to get the second place. While Grenier recovered the second spot for a brief period in the fourth hour, Dan Harper took care of recovering it for the No. 33.
Behind them, the No. 99 Random Vandals BMW suffered a fuel pump issue at halfway point and allowed the No. 63 DXDT Corvette to gain the fourth place but Elliott Skeer had other plans in mid, passing Tommy Milner to put the No. 120 back in fourth after various moments of descending motion in the table.
Following an unconventional pit strategy, the No. 120 Wright Porsche got the overall lead from the WRT BMWs, and eventually it would roll into the No. 63 DXDT Corvette`s court, but their car didn’t have the necessary grunt to hold the No. 120 behind it. Laurin Heinrich then proceeded to do a collection of fast laps to not let the No. 31 come any closer of them, while Wright Motorsport timed right his stints to come with the exact time to do the last stint and not need to stop.
What would be apparently a final hour to manage pace to bring it home for the No. 120 became a race to literally make time, as a post-race 5 second penalty for a pit stop violation was placed in the Porsche, so keeping the No. 31 WRT BMW out of that margin was crucial for Laurin Heinrich. The final minutes became a lap time battle between Dries Vanthoor and Laurin Heinrich, with the Belgian keeping the No. 31 WRT BMW 4.8 seconds off the No. 120 Wright Porsche, but with the penalty applied the No. 31 became the overall winner along with the IGTC Pro Cup win.
Indianapolis 8 Hour - Race results
Despite losing the overall top spot, the No. 120 Wright Porsche still got the GTWCA Pro Cup win with authority, The No. 10 Herberth Porsche was the best Pro-Am Cup car and also won the IGTC Pro-Am Cup, while the No. 29 Turner BMW was the best GTWCA Pro-Am Cup entry.
In the Intercontinental GT Challenge tables, Porsche won the manufacturers title with 129 against the 119 from BMW and 97 from Mercedes. Charles Weerts carried BMW to a drivers title with his 68 points against the 50 of Ayhançan Güven, Laurens and Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde, while Antares Au became the Independent Cup champion.
In the GTWC America side, Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeer lifted the Pro Cup title for Wright Motorsports, with 257 points against 230 of Alec Udell and Tommy Milner. The Pro-Am Cup podium allowed Robby Foley and Justin Rothberg to steal the class title from Neil Verhagen and Samantha Tan, ending with 228 points against 223.
PHOTO: SRO/Fabian Lagunas
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