+ Result: Free Practice, Indianapolis
A rapid early effort by Jules Gounon helped Mercedes-AMG Team Lone Star Racing to the top of the times in opening Indianapolis 8 Hour practice this evening.
The Andorran ace took the wheel for the start of the 90-minute into-the-night blast and wasted little time in making the best use of the fading light and dwindling temperatures to set a 1:23.215s lap that would stand as the benchmark throughout, keeping himself and team-mates Lin Hodenius and Maxime Martin top of the pile.
Team WRT’s title-chasing driver Kelvin van der Linde moved the #46 BMW he shares with Valentino Rossi and outgoing IGTC Drivers’ champion Charles Weerts up to second, the South African’s best falling just 0.074s shy. Random Vandals Racing was third with Bill Auberline, Philipp Eng and Varun Choksey crewing its M4. Raffaele Marciello finished just 0.07s behind title rival Van der Linde in fourth in the BMW he shares with Augusto Farfus and Al Faisal Al Zubair. The Mercedes-AMGs of 75 Express (Kenny Habul/Will Power/Chaz Mostert) and Team GMR (Tom Kalender/Maro Engel/Luca Stolz) rounded out a top six covered by just 0.25s.
Herberth Motorsport finished as the fastest Pro-Am entry with Dustin Blattner, Alfred Renauer and Dennis Marschall aboard the #21 Porsche. They just held off the Turner Motorsport BMW (Justin Rothberg/Patrick Gallagher/Robby Foley) and AF Corse USA’s #16 296 GT3 (Marcelo Hahn/Christian Hahn/Allam Khodair).
Dollahite Racing’s Ford Mustang driven by Scott Dollahite, Eric Powell and Stefano Gattuso set the Am class pace.
Friday’s running begins with Pre-Qualifying at 09:50 local time, with the session being shown live on the GT World YouTube channel.
