The SRO GT World Challenge America championship held its season finale at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday with the Indy 8 Hour, which was also the final round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge (IGTC) championship. Turner Motorsport overcame a big points deficit to win the GT World Challenge America (GTWC) Pro-Am championship, while BMW M Team WRT won the race overall and works driver Charles Weerts won the drivers championship.
BMW teams Turner Motorsport and ST Racing have been battling for the GTWC Pro-Am championship all season. ST Racing looked set to win the championship at Indy, as they had a 33-point lead over Turner heading into the finale. The points race was much tighter among the IGTC entries in the Indy 8 Hour, with WRT driver Weerts just seven points behind Porsche drivers Laurens Vanthoor and Ayhancan Guven in the Pro class, while Porsche led BMW in the manufacturer’s championship.
Unlike BMW and Mercedes-AMG, Porsche had elected not to send works-backed entries to Indy to fight for the IGTC championships. Laurens Vanthoor also elected not to enter the Indy race with another Porsche team, but to stay focused on his driver championship effort in the Hypercar class of the FIA World Endurance Championship. Ayhancan Guven was entered in the GMG Racing Porsche in the Pro-Am class instead of a Pro class entry, which would effectively hand the drivers title to Weerts if he finished well in the race.
ST Racing held a commanding lead in the GT World Challenge Pro-Am championship but lost it due to fuel pressure issues at Indy.
At the start of the race, things looked great for the #38 ST Racing entry of Samantha Tan and Neil Verhagen, who were joined at Indy by John Capestro-Dubets as a third driver. They were running a few spots in front of the Turner Motorsport #29 car of Robby Foley, Justin Rothberg, and Patrick Gallagher (shown in the top photo), with Gallagher joining as a third driver for Indy. Disaster struck the ST Racing entry in the second hour when the car had fuel pressure issues and lost significant time in the pits. The car was fixed and put back out, only to have the problem reappear later in the race. It was a bitter end to what had been a very successful season for the team.
Turner Motorsport didn’t have any of the car issues that ST Racing did and ran strong throughout the race, running in the Pro-Am class lead late in the race before a final pit stop, which dropped them into second behind the Herberth Motorsport Porsche, which was an IGTC entry. That second-place finish gave Foley and Rothberg the championship by five points over the ST Racing pair of Tan and Verhagen.
The championship was the tenth for Turner Motorsport racing with BMW, and Rothberg also won the GT World Challenge America Rookie of the Year. “What an amazing day for our team,” said Foley. “It’s just a testament to the work we’ve put in all year. I feel super lucky and thankful to drive for BMW and Turner and all the guys and girls that make it possible. It was an amazing way to finish the season, and I’m super proud of Justin for his improvement all year.”
BMW M Team WRT set the tone for the race from the first laps, with the #31 M4 GT3 of Sheldon van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts setting the pace and leading the race for most of the first four hours, with the #33 of Dan Harper, Max Hesse and Augusto Farfus running in formation in second. The #33 car ran into issues late in the race with a broken rear diffuser and finished several laps down, while the #31 ended up running in second behind the Wright Motorsport Porsche.
The #31 BMW M Team WRT entry won overall, with Charles Weerts winning the IGTC drivers championship.
There was a lot of drama in the closing hour of the race. The Wright Motorsport Porsche held the lead but would have to serve a post-race five-second penalty for a pit lane infringement, so the goal of Dries Vanthoor in the closing stint was to stay within five seconds of the Porsche. He managed to do that, though the Porsche crossed the finish line first, the #31 BMW was given the win after the penalty was assessed. The win was BMW M Team WRT’s second in a row, as they also won the race last year, and the win also gave Weerts the IGTC drivers’ championship.
BMW M Team WRT’s #33 car had rear diffuser issues after running in second for much of the race.
Unfortunately, BMW lost the manufacturers championship to Porsche, despite Porsche sending no works-backed entries to Indy. BMW would have easily won that championship as well if most of the M4 GT3s on the entry (seven of them) didn’t have issues that led to poor finishes. The #33 WRT car and the #29 Turner car were the only BMWs to finish in the top ten. The #28 ST Racing entry of Bill Auberlen, Varun Choksey, and Philipp Eng finished eleventh, but the other four BMWs had reliability issues during the race. Porsche, on the other hand, had three cars finish in the top seven.
The ST Racing #28 M4 GT3 finished eleventh overall.
Turner Motorsport driver Justin Rothberg also had a great season in GT America, which is a sprint race series for single drivers. Rothberg really came on strong in the second half of the year and was third in the driver points coming into Indy. He won both races at Indy and finished just one point behind legendary driver Johnny O’Connell in the championship. “It was an amazing weekend at Indy with my first sweep of the season,” said Rothberg. “It felt amazing, especially considering where we started the season getting spun at Sonoma, so it’s just a polar opposite ending the season like this.”
Justin Rothberg won both GT America races at Indy and finished second in the championship.
—David Haueter
https://www.gt-world-challenge-america.com/
[Photos by David Haueter]