Grenier, Gounon & Engel Top the Q2 Combined | Indianapolis 8 Hour | IGTC + Fanatec GT America 2024

So, and he won here. He swept both rounds, I believe, here in Indianapolis recently. So he knows the track well, coming in with a ton of momentum. Not his first Intercontinental GT Challenge appearance of the season. He also ran at the 24 Hours of Spa in a star-crossed entry, unfortunately, in the bronze class for Retronic Racing. They did not have a very long 24 hours of competition, at the very least. But, certainly loving this chance to showcase what he could do in that car right now, on aggregate, provisionally P5, after Kai Van Burlo just lifted the RS1 Porsche up into 3rd. That's Pirruzuali there, lost quite a bit of time in Sector 2, as you can see, looking at the graphic. Great year, fastest overall in this session in Sector 3. It's a solid run for him, currently second fastest in this session. About a tenth of a second away from Fabian Schiller. Here is Elias Seppinen, we mentioned him earlier in relation to his relationship with Philip Ellis and Jeff Burton. Seppinen, pretty quick, here in the early going. Seventh fastest in the session in the car right now, 13th fastest, when you factor in Jeff Burton's times. Zach Veach now behind the wheel of the Racer's Edge machine. Luca Mars had a really solid run in that first qualifying. Certainly did, solidly inside the top ten. Zach Veach will try and keep that car there right now, it is 8th. Dan Harper has just moved his BMW up into 3rd. I mentioned in pre-qualifying, I called him, erroneously, the reigning British GT champion. That's not quite right, with apologies to those that won the championship last weekend. But he was the last year's British GT champion, so did want to cover that off real quick. And doing a really nice job here with this opportunity. Sheldon Bandelina behind the wheel of the WRT number 31, just moved up to 5th on the board in this session. And for the car overall, 3rd right now with the combined times, as you can see with the graphic to the left of the screen. Kjell Grignier, fastest now in this session, and has his car on provisional pull for the 5th running of the Indy 8 hour, powered by AWS. This is Brendan Leach, from New Zealand, he's been quick here this weekend to this point. Right now, just a fraction of the fastest time in Q2. Has that car a little further down the order though, has some work to do to drag it up inside the top ten. Two laps within a few hundredths of each other there for Brendan, really impressive Kiwi, doing some great things aboard these Porsches. Moved back to Oz to run in the GT World Challenge Australia Championship for this season. Was based in Germany for a while, but things didn't quite work out, so he moved back home and got some great results this year. This is Alex Fontana, Swiss driver who grew up wanting to be an IndyCar driver, never got the chance to do so. But begged and pleaded with his co-driver, Hash, to add a North American race to the calendar. And the request was granted, and here he is racing at the famed Brickyard. He told me when he was racing in FIA F2, he patterned his livery off of the late Justin Wilson in one of his IndyCars. Very cool. Now he is just soaking up this opportunity. Jordan Love, not the first time he's been here. Here he was here a couple of weeks ago, racing in IMSA. This is part of the AAA team. They were really quick in the first group, and right now that car is sixth fastest and would be provisionally on the Pro-Am pole. Yeah, it's a really solid run for those guys. Jamie Winkler and company are not here this weekend prepping for the big race next week at Bathurst, but nonetheless they're a top-notch team. Based in Sepang with their GT3 program. WRT going to work here, currently third and fourth with the 31 and the 33. This Sheldon van der Linde digging deep here, personal best on the first two sectors. Can he creep up the border? Yes, he does. Jumps two positions up to P3 and just nine hundredths of a second off of the fast time of the session. Really solid lap by the South African. A close deal like it, Cal. I mean, the top four in this specific group of qualifying are separated by 37 thousandths. Four cars in 37 thousandths of a second. Yeah, that is wild. Patrick Gallagher aboard the number 29 machine for Turner Motorsports. Very much in that Pro-Am championship. Robbie Foley and company digging deep here. They need a big weekend, but it's still possible for the championship. Ohio native Patrick Gallagher does not improve. That car 14th right now. Kenny Habul, multi-time Intercontinental champion in his own class. Jayden Ojeda was quick with that car in the first round of qualifying, but it's dropped outside of the top 10 here. Factoring in Kenny's times with under four minutes to go in Q2. And the third row is going to have to dig deep to climb back into that top 10 to be in a position for that poor shootout later this afternoon. But Kenny, such a personality. Now established his own team based in Munich, Germany. He's running collaboration with other customer racing teams over the years here, but he's doing his own thing now. They've got Lucas Auer set to run in the third leg of this qualifying relay. Very quick driver with a lot of experience in these Mercedes. So they're right there on the cusp of making it through to the shootout. Jordan Love, what a lap he was on. Just a fraction off of the fastest in this session through sector one. Slipped off a little further in sector two, but he's putting something nice together. So is Tom Sargent, by the way. We've been talking him up over the course of the day today. That car weighs down the order at the moment, but... Big lap there by Jordan. Finishes it off. Nice third sector there. Personal best. So on 23.64, so about two tenths off the fast time. Moves that 888 or keeps them well inside the top 10. That's really solid right now. P6. Here is Sargent onto the front straightaway at the Speedway. And he does his personal best. That car still, though, down in 17th on combined times. But his time is the eighth fastest of this group. Alex Sims drafted in. He said there's a ton of pressure from what the two boys, his co-drives, have done. Eight wins on the bounce. Just incredible season for the 63 squad. And if they can win again, it's going to be a tall order with the pace we're seeing in this Corvette here at Indy. But if they should win again, there'll be nothing that the 120 squad could do about it with the double points scored for this weekend's event. But they've been on the back foot. They just have not had the pace. This is a bit more promising, quite frankly, than we've seen out of them, at least on aggregate sitting in 12th. But Sims just 15th fastest in Q2 here ahead of a handful of drivers. But it's not been an easy run for DXDT Racing at the Speedway. Most of the cars are situated in the pit lane right now. A few still turning laps, including Tom Sargent, who is still pushing. His opening sector was pretty good. Middle sector looks like he gave some up. But he'll go ahead and make that trip into the pits with still a minute on the clock. And I think it would just be Sims that is now still out on the circuit for DXDT Racing. And through the first two sectors, it does not look like he's putting down a lap that would challenge anyone to affect the lineup here. Yeah, it's going to be tough. Tommy Milner is going to have to pull a wrap out of his hat here if they're going to get that 63 car inside the top 10 on average to make it to the pole shootout. But they're knocking on the door. They're not that far away. But there's a lot of really fast drivers for this third segment waiting to go. Mikhail Griney, fastest in this segment, has the number 130 on the top. But his advantage over Luke Hartog, just one 100th of a second in this group. We told you Luke's a star of the future. He might be a star of the present. I might be selling him short. The season he's putting together in Carrera Cup and then with limited appearances now in GT3s. Yeah, so many young, talented drivers coming through. I mean, Porsche have such a great motor racing ladder with their Carrera Cup programs around the globe. And it just really feeds them, these top young drivers with the sim programs and everything that are used to develop these young talents. They just come in and seem ready to go and to do great things. Checkered flag is out at IMS. Two of the three qualifying segments complete. One still to go. Top 10 move on to pole shootout. That will be at 535 this evening. Positions 11 through 23, though, will be set here in this combined three session qualifying. That was Lucas Auer getting comfy in the 75 Express car. These are the combined results through two. Look how tight these margins are. First to second, less than a tenth. And it's 18 thousandths back to third. Importantly, though, let's look at 10th, 11th, 12th, those cutoff areas. Veach and company racers edge to ST Racing.