Cadillac Racing’s Renger van der Zande led at the halfway mark during the IMSA Battle on the Bricks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The opening half of the six-hour Battle on the Bricks event showcased challenging wet conditions as it equalised the much of the field into fighting for positions.
A prolonged caution period saw track officials utilise their equipment to sweep away much of the standing water which caused limited visibility and tricky driving conditions.
Despite this, the wet ambient weather conditions eventually blew over the IMSA Road Course with the circuit set to dry for the second half of the race.
Action resumed in the second hour after the prolonged caution and this was when Romain Grosjean – piloting the sole #63 GTP Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63 – turned strong if not unmatched pace.
At first, he enthusiastically fought side-by-side with Connor De Phillippi of the #25 RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 before taking fourth place.
Soon enough, the Lamborghini driver grasped third before catching up to the lead fight which saw #01 Cadillac V-Series.R’s Sebastien Bourdais attempting to close Mathieu Jaminet (#6 Porsche Penske 963) and his eight-second gap.
Grosjean caught and overtook Bourdais, who then fell into the grasp of De Phillippi, having run on significantly worn wet tyres.
In contrast for the other #31 Whelen Cadillac, they faced issues when Pipo Derani lost power into Turn 12.
He made it back to his pit box on electric power and the #31 was pushed to their garage behind the wall.
Into the third racing hour
Grosjean continued to eat down Jaminet’s lead gap at the front.
With 3 hours and 46 minutes remaining, Grosjean took his Lamborghini into the lead for the first time in their new LMDh programme.
Jaminet saved a brief snap of his #6 Porsche when Grosjean made a fair move into T13 which prompted brief contact.
Felipe Nasr, in the sibling #7 Porsche Penske, made a mistake after going slightly wide on the curb.
This meant that he lost the great deal of positions he had crawled up in the pursuit to retain the championship lead after the Battle on the Bricks.
Unfortunately for the #63 Lamborghini, they were hit with a drive-through penalty for too many of their mechanics attending to the car during a pit stop.
Matteo Cairoli served the penalty as he took over driving duties, but that was not the end for the #63 Lamborghini’s hopes with drying conditions.
After passing the 100-lap mark, van der Zande led in the #01 as Nick Yelloly’s #25 RLL BMW held second and Richard Westbrook was in third for JDC-Miller MotorSports’ Porsche.
Cairoli was in third for Iron Lynx Lamborghini ahead of Dane Cameron’s #7 Porsche.
Rounding up the other classes
LMP2 was headed by Scott McElrea in the #11 TDS Racing Oreca 07, followed by Nico Pino’s #2 United Autosports USA Oreca and the other team car of Bjoy Garg (#22 Oreca).
In the GTD Pro category, Neil Verhagen held the lead although was off-strategy for Paul Miller Racing’s #1 BMW M4 ahead of Michael Christensen in the #77 AO Racing ‘Rexy’ Porsche 911 which started towards the back.
GTD was being led by Elliott Skeer’s #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche ahead of Frederik Schandorff’s #70 Ferrari 296 and Corey Lewis’ #55 Proton Ford Mustang.
Mike Skeer was in fourth for the class pole-sitting #32 Mercedes-AMG as Simon Mann rounded out the top-five of GTD in the #21 AF Corse Ferrari.
SEE MORE: Classification of results at the three-hour mark, halfway through the race
