Full service and a driver change for the #40 WTR Andretti Acura. Louis Deletraz finishes his stint and Jordan Taylor gets in. This is going to be a mentally draining race. Your eyes are on stalks looking for the puddles and the grip. The GTP cars at 190 miles an hour and the rapid condition changes play games with your mind as a driver. Back time the race for who you want in the car for the final double stint. The tire changers with the rattle guns, the tape is wet and like ice. Their shoes, they don't want to slip and fall down. Break out your wellies, everyone. The rain is getting worse. The #4 Corvette is in. Grab a coffee and some lunch during this yellow. Hot dogs, beans, corn on the cob. Eat up, because we are about to go back to green, maybe.
It is good to discover where the puddles are under yellow as the GTD Pro and GTD cars pit. Paul Miller Racing BMW, Iron Dames Lamborghini. With the constant rain, the track conditions are going to be consistent lap on lap. Not much grip for Jack Hawksworth even on wets in the #14 Lexus RC F GT3 with that 5-liter V8 under the bonnet. Visibility is so massively huge. Have a demister system on the inside of the windscreen and get the windscreen wiper to touch the screen as Philip Eng is in the lane in the #24 BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 sharing with Jesse Krohn.
Richard Westbrook in the #85 "Banana Boat" JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963, loves the wet, sharing with Tijmen van der Helm and fellow Brit Phil Hanson. Watch the braking system on the GTP car, mechanical in the front, and electronic in the back. The spray is insane. Pipo Derani is now in the #31 Whelen Action Express Cadillac. Louis Deletraz tells us that he was very surprised to get tipped into a spin with the GT car outbraking himself. I think that was the #56 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3. That is the all-Scandinavian driving team. Swedes Rasmus Lindh and Henrik Hedman, teamed with Finlander Toni Vilander.
Be patient and watch out for the aquaplaning to avoid a demolition derby. In the old days, there were no heated windscreens in the early 1990s. No defroster, an inside driver's side windscreen wiper, nothing on the right. The inside windscreen wiper jammed into the steering wheel. It is like shaving in the morning right out of the shower. Poor Calvin couldn't find the pit lane. A lot of drivers had the squeegee in the car. Hans Stuck started that trend when he drove with Porsche. The #66 Gradient Racing Acura NSX GT3 is back out but 11 laps down to the VT Daytona class leader. The cameramen have the squeegee.
Back in the day, in 1993, when it rained big at Sebring, our mate Calvin Fish was driving an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme for Rocketsports with Paul Gentilozzi, a champion racer himself, and his team. In that race, 47 cars started in five classes. Calvin Fish drove to an eighth-place finish with teammates Dorsey Schroeder and Paul Gentilozzi in the #31 Rocketsports Oldsmobile Cutlass in the GTS class. In fact, years ago, Calvin and Dorsey commentated on sports car races together as well. Good times! Good times! Still under yellow as Sebastien Bourdais leads overall and in GTP. Nick Boulle leads LMP2. Alexander Sims in GTD Pro and Patrick Gallagher in GTD.
So, Ganassi Cadillac, PR1/Mathiasen with Inter Europol, Corvette Racing, and Turner Motorsports BMW. Action Express had a slight miscommunication on the left rear tire. They sent the car and corrected the mistake. No worries. Pipo Derani driving now. Tom Blomqvist will be in the car next. The weather doesn't guarantee a clean race. Get the drive time in. Then, you don't want to change drivers in changing conditions. Nutrition and hydration so important. What do drivers eat?
Well, get carbohydrates and water. Anything easy to go down like pasta. No heavy food. But carbo loading is big. Pasta with a little chicken and a little olive oil will be fine. Now, if you have a three-driver lineup, all the drivers need to do a 30-minute drive time. You can't leave your third driver hanging. There is an adjustment to the rules, if there is a red flag. You need to tick all the boxes with the strategy. It is so, so tough for the coaches, for the engineers and the strategists. Dirk Mueller is back at the wheel of the #65 Ford Mustang GT3. The #19 Lamborghini is out of the race. Game over for Maximilian Paul and for Luca Engstler.
The Multimatic Ford Mustang team are looking good. Now, they are back on track. These cars are so homologated, you have to get permission to change the parts. This is a formula, when you build a car, you build it in a box, and you need to approve it according to the rules and parameters it was built to. It takes an act of Congress to change it. It is why we use Balance of Performance. There are a lot of engine layouts and types, and power ratings. The tech committee, from a power and weight ratio, the cars need to be equal to race each other.
The #75 SunEnergy1 Mercedes-AMG GT3 is pitting. That's the all-Australian team of Kenny Habul, Jordan Love, and Chaz Mostert. One of Habul's homes is on the Conrod straight at Mount Panorama Bathurst where Habul and his team have won. He has run at Indianapolis in SRO competition, and we will have the SRO enduro race here for you in a couple weeks. Cars circulating and we are getting the field under control. There is time to neutralize and don't turn this race into a demolition derby. The #027 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 is pitting.
They had a damper, a shock absorber issue that was out of homologation, so they got disqualified. This is their GTD Pro second entry with Roman De Angelis, the Canadian, and Germany's Mario Farnbacher. Heinrich and Gunn are 49 points apart for the GTD Pro title. This is the crossover time, and you can use the other car as a guinea pig to change over to a different set or type of Michelin tires. Split strategies can really be helpful. Trust me, no team is going to give their strategy away! So, as writers and commentators, we just have to guess. Learn the track. Learn the conditions as we are almost halfway through hour two here at Indianapolis.
There's moisture in the air right now. IMSA has such great history. There was a historic NASCAR race in the HSR historic sports car racing. These are the older NASCAR cars, not the homologated Gen 7 machines of today. Go to IMSA.com and check out the 2025 HSR Historic Sports Car Racing schedule. The road courses are a part of NASCAR's playoffs for the championship. There's Watkins Glen and the Charlotte Motor Speedway "roval". "Rexy" the dinosaur, the Porsche #77 is in for scheduled service. Pat Womack won the NASCAR Classic race, an old Joe Gibbs Denny Hamlin Toyota Camry.
Chris Andrews prepares those old NASCAR Cup cars. There is a street legal NASCAR CUp Series road course Toyota for Kyle Busch when he drove for Joe Gibbs Racing. He made a NASCAR Cup car street legal like the old Trans Am cars, the old sports cars from the '40s, '50s, '60s, and '70s. That is just plain cool! Chris Andrews is an engineer for the Lexus Vasser Sullivan team. Frankie Montecalvo says when the rain started, he was on slicks and hit a river and snapped around and crunched the wall. They are getting the car back together and hoping to get back out there. Halfway through the second hour here at Indianapolis.
Again, these wet conditions are like black ice, and you can do nothing if the car hydroplanes off the road. With the wide track in the corners, you try scooting down the inside, and it can turn into calamity corner. IMSA is very giving, and many teams give back to those less fortunate or giving back to those who might be sick. Mike Rockenfeller is getting out of the #64 Ford Mustang GT3, and Harry Tincknell gets in. The IMSA paddock, there is a return on everything. Camp Boggy Creek, Austin Hatcher pediatric cancer foundation, Team Fox for Parkinson's research, and more. The #18 Era Motorsports Oreca of Connor Zilisch, he has been on a tear, winning in stock cars, sports cars, you name it.
Wins in LMP2, Mazda MX5 Cup, ARCA. NASCAR Trucks, NASCAR Xfinity Series. My gosh! Connor Zilisch is a character. He is a huge asset to the endurance races for Era Motorsports. Ryan Dalziel, Connor Zilisch, and Dwight Merriman. Zilisch did not have good luck at Bristol in the ARCA race on the truck race and had a huge crunch in both events. 36 degree banking at Bristol Speedway in Tennessee. Connor Zilisch can drive stock cars and sports cars, both. Green flag and we are back to racing. Rediscover the situation. Refocus. Now, Romain Grosjean in the #63 Lamborghini fighting with the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 and that's Connor De Philippi!
Grosjean loses the rear end and has to regroup. The GTP cars were all very close. The Lamborghini has it's first in house designed racing motor, the 3.8-liter twin turbo V8. It is early days. They have been racing in the FIA World Endurance Racing too. Felipe Nasr serves a penalty for passing under yellow along with the #5 Proton Competition Porsche 963 and the #99 AO Racing "Spike" LMP2 car. Remember that Felipe Nasr is the championship leader. Risi Competizione scrapping with one of the McLaren's and now, the Pfaff Motorsports #9 McLaren 720S GT3 moves up past the #88 AF Corse LMP2 car.
Henrik Hedman has spun the #56 DragonSpeed Flex Box Ferrari 296 GT3 and we had a three-way battle in LMP2 as Charlie Eastwood in the #8 Tower Motorsports car got squeezed. The #90 Kellymoss Racing Porsche 911 GT3R was also involved, Jake Pedersen, Kay van Berlo, and Riley Dickinson. The fight is on between the #14 Vssser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 and the #62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 as well as the #96 GTD BMW M4 GT3 from Turner Motorsports. All the GT Daytona Pro and GT Daytona cars are the same. Only the driver lineups are different and here come the two Heart of Racing Aston Martin's in GTD Pro!
Holy cow! What a race! What a race! Riberas is passed by De Angelis. Oh, my heavens! The battle is now on between Sebastien Bourdais, Matthieu Jaminet, and Connor De Philippi. Cadillac, Porsche, BMW, onto Hulman Boulevard carving through the GTD Pro and GTD traffic. Forget good, clean easy laps, and Jaminet reads the move and passes Bourdais! Holy mackerel! He made that look like taking candy from a baby. Only 46 points separating the two Penske Porsche's in the points standings right now. There's a long way to go yet.
Bourdais in the #01 Cadillac is caught in GTD traffic. The strain will not be physical for the drivers in the rain. The mental fatigue will be extreme. Drivers after the race tonight will want to be in a darkened room and go to bed early. Eat some dinner, get out of your racing suit, and go to bed. Oh man! Eight LMP2 cars have drive through penalties for disobeying the wave around and the class split. LMP2 drivers were told no by Race Control on the class split. They gave the split to the GTP cars;. That's an oddity. We'll see what timing and scoring says. Jaminet is motoring away from Bourdais in traffic.
The headlamps are so bright, they are more of a distraction to a GT driver if the GTP cars are motoring up behind you. Nico Pino in the #2 Wynn's sponsored United Autosport Oreca leads but they too have a penalty in their future. Ben Keating and Ben Hanley share the car with the Chilean driver as the #023 Triarsi Ferrari spins, Onofrio Triarsi at the wheel of it making contact with another car. That wheel on the left rear is busted. He got collected by the #45 Lamborghini and the #43 Porsche. Chain reaction crash there.
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