- Olly Shakesby
- Sep 26, 2024
- 7 min read
IMSA - BMW victory at the Brickyard
BMW secured a historic 1-2 at the Battle of the Bricks at Indianapolis, while title contenders fell down the order to make the teams championship tighter than ever.
QUALIFYING
Combined qualifying for the GTD Pro and GTD classes is always an electrifying way to kick off the competitive track action as the incredible GT3 cars roar around the track. With nine minutes left on the clock the #65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang in the hands of Dirk Muller was spun at turn twelve by the #34 Conquest Ferrari 296 GT3 with Manny Franco behind the wheel. The #34 received a drive through penalty to be served at the start of the race. The #77 AO Racing Porsche, affectionately referred to as Rexy, took overall pole in GTD Pro with just 0.059 seconds separating the top two. The qualifying at Indianapolis saw one of the closest GTD qualifying sessions of the year as the top twenty-three cars were within one second of the fastest times. The #32 Korthoff/Preston Motorsports Mercedes was on pole in GTD. The #77 would later be disqualified from qualifying for breaching the minimum rear ride height regulations.
The Indianapolis round was the first round of the season where Sean Creech Motorsport were not entered in the LMP2 field, meaning that Oreca were the only manufacturer represented in the prototype class. The championship leading #52 Inter-Europol by PR1/Mathiasen Oreca 07 in the hands of Nick Boulle took pole in what was a rare uneventful LMP2 qualifying session where all the cars finished within three seconds of the overall pole time.
The GTP qualifying began with a spin from the #63 Lamborghini Iron Lynx car in the hands of Romain Grosjean, but the rest of the session ran cleanly. BMW M Team RLL continued to show their strong pace as they put both the #24 and the #25 cars to the top of the timing sheets before being pipped by Jaminet, Deletraz and finally Sebastian Bourdais who secured pole for the #01 Cadillac Racing machine.
RACE
As the race preparations began all the teams knew that rain was going to be a game changer across the six hour period, and the rain drops began falling as the cars left pitlane for the formation laps. This left every car out on slick tires as the rain got heavier and heavier throughout the first hour. The green flag flew and all the classes made a clean getaway in spite of the slick track conditions. The #7 Porsche had a brilliant start to the race as Brazilian Felipe Nasr managed to find grip where no-one else could, to move into the lead of the race at the start of lap three. The first major contact of the race came when the Iron Lynx #19 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 in the hands of Maximilian Paul made a reckless move on the inside of the #65 Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang. Both cars went off track with damage and the #65 ended up behind the wall to fix front end damage. The #19 spent an extended period in pitlane as the Iron Lynx team fixed both the front left and rear left suspension.
As the GTP field caught and started to lap the GTD field the #40 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-06 was caught up in an incident with a GTD Ferrari. Shortly after this a drive through penalty was given to the #19 for incident responsibility in the earlier contact with the #65 Mustang. The #19 would later retire from the race as the car never fully recovered from the contact.
The first full course yellow period came with five hours and forty-three minutes on the clock as the #88 Richard Mille AF Corse LMP2 became stuck on the damp grass after spinning unaided in turn three. This left the teams in a difficult spot as rain was predicted to hit the track within five minutes of the full course yellow being called and with no knowledge of how much rain would fall it was a complete gamble as to whether the cars should stay on the slick tyre or switch to the wet tyres. Chaos ensued on pitlane as teams made multiple stops under the full course yellow and safety car conditions to both fuel up and change tires. One major incident during the pit cycle was the #99 AO Racing LMP2 had a tire outside the pit box which was hit by the #23 Heart of Racing GTD Pro Aston Martin. This would lead to a drive through penalty for the #99 for leaving pit equipment unattended.
At the restart Sebastian Bourdais in the #01 Cadillac Racing GTP made an immediate move on the #7 Porsche to take the overall lead of the race as the chaos continued behind with the #22 United Autosports LMP2 spinning in turn two. There was also a move for the lead in LMP2 as the #52 Inter-Europol by PR1/Mathiasen machine got past the #2 United Autosports car in the hands of Ben Keating. The Gradient Racing #66 Acura NSX came to a stop at turn one with a suspected power failure. This caused yet another full course yellow period with just over five hours and fifteen minutes left on the clock. This full course yellow saw even more chaos in the pitlane as the rain started to hammer the tarmac in Indianapolis. Teams made multiple pitstops, the first for fuel and the second for wet tires as the track became treacherous on slick tires. On the restart the #12 VasserSullivan Lexus hit the wall on the main straight before even getting to the start/finish line. This caused the race to go straight back into a full course yellow period as there was severe damage to the car and lots of debris.
After an extended full course yellow period due to the extreme weather conditions the field came to the green flag with just four hours and twelve minutes left on the clock meaning that in less than two hours of running over an hour had been spent under full course yellow or safety car. On the restart the #01 Cadillac was leading in the hands of Sebastian Bourdais whilst Grosjean and Connor De Phillippi in the #63 and #24 respectively battled for fourth overall. Felipe Nasr in the #7 Porsche received a drive through penalty for passing under the previous yellow flags leading up to the full course yellow. In the lead of the race Jaminet was opening up a gap to the rest of the field after having got past Bourdais who was now being passed by Grosjean in the #63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini in what was an unexpected turn of pace from the Italian hypercar.
The #31 Whelen Cadillac became the first GTP to suffer any major issues as the car spun at turn twelve due to the combustion engine cutting out, the car limped back to the pitlane on electrical power. With just over three hours and forty-five minutes left, Grosjean overtook Jaminet for first overall albeit whilst making some minor contact. It wasn’t long until the full course yellow was back out once again as the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin went off after contact with the #46 and #56. We went back to green with just over two hours and forty minutes on the clock and as the green flag flew the #40 was slow to react and lost multiple positions in the GTP class.
Renger van der Zande took the lead coming through the final corner with an amazing outside line overtake on the #24 BMW which was in the hands of Jesse Krohn. The full course yellow made its final appearance with two hours and twenty-three minutes left on the clock as the #80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo found itself beached in the gravel after being spun by the #65 Mustang in turn four. At the restart the #65 received a drive through penalty for incident responsibility. The #01 Cadillac came to the pitlane for what they believed could be their final stop but lost a wheel on the out-lap, meaning they were back in the pits immediately. Shortly afterwards the #7 Porsche came to a stop on the front straight with mechanical issues, but thankfully got running again and another full course yellow period was avoided. However, their pace never recovered as they slowly lost powered steering due to a hydraulics leak. The BMW #24 in the hands Philipp Eng got past the #01 Cadillac for the lead and was followed by the #25 in what was shaping up to be a historic day for the BMW Motorsports program.
The overall win went to the #24 BMW GTP with the #25 finishing in second, making the Battle of the Bricks at Indianapolis BMW’s first ever overall 1-2 in IMSA history. In LMP2 the #11 TDS Racing took the win in class. The #77 AO Racing ‘Rexy’ Porsche made an incredible comeback from last on the grid, to take the GTD Pro and overall GTD win followed by the #64 Ford Multimatic Mustang. In the GTD class the #120 Wright Motorsport Porsche took the win as they look to move up the championship order.
GLOVES OFF AT PETIT LE MANS
Looking forward to the final round at Road Atlanta (Petit Le Mans), the championship battles are alive and kicking in every class. It’s a Penske Porsche fight at the top with the #7 and #6 close at the top, the #01 Cadillac has an outside chance at the championship but could only win in extreme circumstances, whilst in LMP2 it is also a three-way fight between the #52, #74 and #18 cars. In GTD Pro it is just a two horse race as the #77 Porsche and #23 Aston Martin fight for the title honours. In the GTD class it will be the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes and #96 Turner Motorsport BMW fighting for the final class title. With ten hours of multiclass madness to get through there are more permutations for each outcome than I could count let alone list.
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