Laurin Heinrich claimed his first pole position for ‘Rexy’ in the GTD Pro category for the IMSA SportsCar Championship’s Battle on the Bricks.
The green AO Racing Porsche 911 came out on top of the GT field in qualifying for the penultimate round on the 2024 campaign.
A GT field of 35 entries comprised of 13 GTD Pro cars and 23 GTD competitors.
Time was of the essence as drivers extracted their quickest possible lap times from their GT3 machinery.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s Road Course runs at a short 2.439-mile lap with 14 corners, partially incorporating Turns 1 and 2 of the historic Speedway itself.
Firstly, Manny Franco tapped the rear of Dirk Mueller’s #65 Ford Multimatic Motorsport Mustang at Turn 12.
The #34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 driver was awarded a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.
As for the #65 Ford driver, he had another off-track moment when he outbraked himself into Turn 7.
Twenty-four cars covered one second, making the session a closely-matched effort between all of the drivers.
Fan-favourite ‘Rexy’ on pole
By 0.059 seconds, Heinrich claimed pole position on his first qualifying outing this year in the #77 Porsche 911 with a lap time of 1:23.150.
Nicky Catsburg (#4 Corvette Z06 GT3.R) will start in second place with his time of 1:23.209 and Mike Rockenfeller put the #64 Ford Multimatic in third.
He recently claimed the first podium finish for the new Mustang at the VIRginia International Raceway.
Fourth place was taken by Neil Verhagen’s #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 with a 1:23.261 lap time, ahead of #3 Corvette driver Alexander Sims’ 1:23.298.
Alex Riberas earned sixth place for the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage after his 1:23.344 time.
Daniel Serra took seventh place after he drove a 1:23.399 time in his #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 which won the 24 Hours of Daytona season-opener.
Roman De Angelis’ finished P8 in the #027 Heart of Racing Aston Martin with his 1:23.506 time.
Almost all GTD Pro cars out-qualified the GTD cars with the exception of five entrants.
Mikael Grenier takes GTD pole honours
The most recent GTD race winner, the #32 Team Korthoff/Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG, emerged quickest in their category.
Grenier set a 1:23.537 lap time and was 0.262 seconds ahead of Giammarco Levorato’s #55 Proton Ford which took P2.
After four GTD Pro cars, the next GTD entrant was the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F of Parker Thompson.
His lap time of 1:23.939 set himself ahead of P3 in-class, Patrick Gallagher of the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW.
Mueller will start behind the pair, as the championship-leading #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG followed.
Russell Ward’s lap time of 1:24.114 finalised the top-five of the GTD category.
As usual, the combined GT field will start in their mixed order for the Battle on the Bricks.
Lights out will commence tomorrow at 11.40am local time/4.40pm BST for the six-hour race.
SEE MORE: The ammended provisional classification of qualifying results for the 10th IMSA 2024 round
Editor’s Note:
AO Racing has lost their pole position due to a ride height infringement.
Nicky Catsburg (#3 Corvette) has inherited the GTD Pro pole.
