Wright Motorsports’ Laurin Heinrich, Adam Adelson and Elliott Skeer managed to win the Indianapolis 8 Hour on the road Saturday evening (Oct. 5). However, a protocol penalty on their final pit stop resulted in a five-second post-race penalty.
With the penalty, Team WRT’s Sheldon van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts inherited the overall victory. It is the trio’s second straight Intercontinental GT Challenge victory after they won the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa in July.
“I gave it everything I had. It was an amazing fight,” Vanthoor told SRO America’s Amanda Busick after the race. “It was a fuel race to the end and we did it. I’ll need a few days to recover, but I’m very, very happy.”
Team WRT’s margin of victory with the penalty was .260 seconds over Wright Motorsports. GruppeM Racing’s Maro Engel, Jules Gounon and Mikael Grenier were third, followed by Racers Edge Motorsports’ Gabby Chaves, Luca Mars and Zach Veach in their Acura. DXDT Racing’s Tommy Milner, Alexander Sims and Alec Udell were fifth.
In the IGTC Pro class, van der Linde, Vanthoor and Weerts won by 20.886 seconds over Engel, Gounon and Grenier. Third went to Lone Star Racing’s Alex Palou, Fabian Schiller and Luca Stolz, but they were five laps down due to a series of electrical issues.
Herberth Motorsport’s Patric Niederhauser started from the overall pole in his Pro-Am Porsche. He was able to open up a small gap at the front of the field in the opening minutes. However, he had a big lead over Kenny Habul in the SunEnergy1 Mercedes, the next car in class. In just a half hour, Niederhauser had a 41-second lead in class.
Van der Linde was able to take the lead away from Niederhauser just after the half-hour mark. However, that ended up being just temporary as Niederhauser was able to get him back.
The first safety car period came out 49 minutes into the race when Habul bodyslammed Flying Lizard Motorsports’ Elias Sabo, resulting in Sabo getting stuck in the gravel in turn 4. Sabo was able to continue after the incident, but he lost significant time getting pulled out of the trap.
Much of the field chose to pit here for their first stop of the day. Niederhauser chose to stay out to keep on their original strategy.
Stolz started from the IGTC Pro pole in his Lone Star Racing Mercedes, but his time at the front was very short-lived. Van der Linde was quickly able to take the class lead under braking for turn…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at …