AF Corse No.71 Charges From 18th To The Lead After One Hour in Indy

From 18th on the grid, the #71 AF Corse-Francorchamps Ferrari 488 GT3 of Daniel Serra, Ulysse De Pauw, and Antonio Fuoco has taken the lead after the first hour and first round of routine pit stops in the third annual Indianapolis 8 Hour race.

This first hour was defined by the opening stint heroics of Serra. The Brazilian gained six places alone on the opening lap,  and within the first ten laps he’d gained 13 positions to crack the overall top five.

Russell Ward started on pole in his #33 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, but soon found himself under pressure from the #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari of Alessandro Balzan, and the #1 K-PAX Lamborghini Huracán of Marco Mapelli who went from fifth to third on the opening lap.

Balzan took the lead from Ward by outbraking the Mercedes into turn seven, on lap 12, and eight laps later, Mapelli would overtake Ward and chase down a 3.5 second gap to his fellow countryman in the blue and white Ferrari.

Serra continued his relentless charge through the pack, overtaking Ward on lap 23 to move into third place.

Mapelli eventually brought the gap to Balzan down to less than a second, and after several laps of running tail-to-nose, Mapelli drove past Balzan for the race lead on track.

Serra then worked his way past Balzan, using lapped traffic as a pick to overtake into turn seven and grab second position, 1.5 seconds behind Mapelli.

After 55 minutes, teams began to make their first round of pit stops. Both Mapelli and Serra brought their cars in on the same lap.

But thanks to the quick work of the AF Corse mechanics to get their car refuelled, change tyres, and drivers from Serra to De Pauw just within the minimum pit time, they were able to jump ahead of the all-black K-PAX Lamborghini on track to take the lead.

The Belgian wunderkind De Pauw begins his first stint with a 1.5 second lead ahead of the #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari, which is still in the hands of Balzan who is running a double stint. The #1 K-PAX Lamborghini, now piloted by Michele Beretta, slipped to third.

Another hard charger has been the #77 Craft-Bamboo Racing AMG GT3 – Daniel Morad went from 15th to sixth in his opening stint, and now resumes in fourth place on a double stint, ahead of the #33 Winward AMG GT3 of Ward, who is also double stinting in fifth. The lone Silver Cup entry, the #38 ST Racing BMW M4 GT3, is now running fifth overall with Nick Wittmer, another double stinter, closing in on Ward.

Robby Foley took over the #96 Turner Motorsport M4 from starting driver Michael Dinan, and is now running seventh.

Another hard charger has been the chrome silver and dayglow red #43 RealTime Racing Acura NSX GT3, which started 19th after a five-place grid penalty carried over from Erin Vogel’s start line incident at Sebring Race 1.

Michael Cooper worked his way up into the overall top ten, then overtook the #13 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari out of the pits to take eighth overall and the Pro-Am class lead.

Cooper stays aboard the RealTime NSX into hour two, now leading the #13 Triarsi Ferrari in the hands of Ryan Dalziel, in ninth. Dominik Baumann has taken over the #75 SunEnergy1 Racing with Akkodis ASP Mercedes from Kenny Habul, and currently rounds out the top ten overall.

The #08 DXDT Racing AMG GT3 (Valentin Pierburg started, Scott Smithson now driving) leads the two-car Am Cup battle over the #88 Zelus Motorsports Lamborghini (Jason Harward > Seth Lucas) . Smithson runs 17th overall, with Lucas down in 24th.

It was a disjointed start behind the first five rows of the grid. On the formation lap, the #45 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3-R of Charlie Luck spun at turn 13, and the #04 CrowdStrike Racing with Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 of George Kurtz did the same behind him! This incident between gentleman racers caused the cars behind them to check up, but thankfully, there were no other incidents further back in the pack.

The #13 Triarsi Ferrari of Grunewald inherited the Pro-Am lead after the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura NSX GT3 of Mario Farnbacher received a drive-through penalty, after making contact with the #3 K-PAX Lamborghini of Misha Goikhberg.

Goikhberg was hit from behind by Farnbacher, sending the bright green Lamborghini spinning around at turn ten. Farnbacher dropped outside of the top ten to the back of the field after serving his penalty, and into the proximity of his GT World Challenge Pro-Am title rivals Kurtz and Luck. However, Farnbacher was able to work his way back up to 11th after the first round of pit stops, handing the car off to Ashton Harrison.

The #94 BimmerWorld M4 went from the pit lane to 13th after a great first stint from Bill Auberlen to hand off to Richard Heistand, just ahead of the other pit lane starter, the #91 TR3 Racing Lamborghini, now 14th after a similar climb from Corey Lewis – who turned the wheel over to Jon Branam.

Steven Aghakhani suffered through his opening stint with a broken splitter on his rebuilt #6 US Racetronics AMG GT3. Tristan Vautier has taken over, now 18th.

The #63 DXDT Racing AMG GT3 of Patrick Assenheimer, Bryan Sellers, and Dirk Müller went to the garage with a brake issue after 13 laps. They returned to the race, now 19 laps behind the overall leader in last place.

Images © Doug Mathews, Travis Hinkle, Matt Fraver / Penske Entertainment Group; Bob Chapman / Autosport Image

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