Huber Magic Strikes Twice As Heinrich Wins Pole At Indianapolis
Matteo Cairoli put Porsche privateer Huber Motorsport on pole for the 24 Hours of Spa. Now, over three months on from that surprise qualifying result, 22-year-old Laurin Heinrich has given Huber Motorsport another shock pole position in the Intercontinental GT Challenge.
Heinrich won the overall pole position for the Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS, driving the Pro-Am class #20 Porsche 911 GT3 R to the top spot in Friday evening’s Pole Shootout.
The young German had to withstand volleys from the two frontline Mercedes-AMG GT3s from the IGTC Pro class, with Jules Gounon bidding for his second straight Indy pole position in the #77 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes, and Luca Stolz going for his first in the #999 GruppeM Racing Mercedes.
Heinrich had the provisional pole taken away from him once by both Mercedes aces, but with three minutes and 40 seconds left, he regained the top spot with a blistering lap of 1:22.707.
That will put Heinrich and co-drivers Antares Au and Alfred Renauer on pole position at Indianapolis.
Gounon’s best lap of 1:22.740 fell short of the pole time by just 33 milliseconds, but he and co-drivers Raffaele Marciello – one of last year’s winning drivers – and Maximillian Götz will still line up alongside them on the front row.
A 1:22.908 from Stolz gave the #999 GruppeM “Beast” third place on the starting grid for tomorrow’s race.
Three BMWs occupy the next three spots on the grid, led by the #30 WRT BMW M4 GT3 of Philipp Eng, ahead of the #94 BimmerWorld Racing BMW of Robby Foley, and the #31 WRT BMW of 2020 Indy 8H winner Augusto Farfus.
Foley’s fifth-place run gave him the highest starting spot of any of the GT World Challenge America regulars.
Jan Heylen qualified seventh in the #45 Wright Motorsports Porsche, ahead of Klaus Bachler, who went out late in the #28 RS1 Porsche and qualified in eighth.
Speedway legacy driver Edward Cheever III qualified ninth aboard the #535 Sky Tempesta Racing Ferrari 488 GT3.
And rounding out the top ten was Samantha Tan, who decided to prioritize track time over pole position by running the Pole Shootout in her #38 ST Racing BMW.
The fourth annual Indianapolis 8 Hour starts at 12:15 PM ET (local time) with live coverage on the official SRO GT World YouTube channel.
Images © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports America
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