After eight glorious hours of racing around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, winners were crowned as the checkered flag waved and the season finale came to a close.
Hear more from the class winners.
Pro Class – No. 29 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 EVO
Justin Rothberg: “ I'm really happy to be racing in the Pro class. I learned a ton racing against everyone, with all these really great drivers that pushed me to drive my very best. Robby and Connor came in, and this race went incredibly well for us. I wasn't really that proud of my first stint, but these two just absolutely clutched it. Robby’s been fantastic all season, he's a wizard in this car, and I'm so happy to have three amazing seasons with this guy.”
Robby Foley: “ I'm in a really privileged position to drive such a great BMW, and to drive with a great teammate like Justin, who has been with Turner now for many years. It feels like a family, it feels like home, and this is three in a row for us. Two championships in Pro-Am and now our first in the Pro class. I’m just a lucky guy, and really happy with our one-lap pace there in qualifying, and then we did everything we needed to do in the race. We dotted our I's, crossed our T's, we were patient and it worked out. Really proud of everybody.”
Connor De Phillippi: “ I just knew I had to show up and do my job. We’re surrounded by the best, obviously Will runs an unbelievable operation. They have amazing drivers, Robby and Justin, and they just did a great job all race. We executed and we knew that's what it was going to take. We had a really, really smart undercut with about three hours to go, and we were able to get track position, and we knew once we got close to the Ferrari, we just had to hope they made a mistake. Robby did some amazing moves to make them just do just that. I’m super happy for these two guys. Justin deserves his championship, as does Robby. It's been a long time coming for him, and I'm happy to see him get this Pro championship.”
Pro-Am Class – No. 32 GMG Racing Porsche 911 GT3-R (992) EVO
Kyle Washington: “ You know, there's so many people that are involved in these things. When I got into racing, I didn't really understand how many parts there are to the program. We've got 30-plus people on our team, and everyone has a specific job. If they don't do it, then the machine falls apart. We always say you have to be good to be lucky, but lucky to be good. I think we were a little bit lucky this season, but man, we were pretty good too. I'm so proud. I just love all these guys and it's quite emotional, frankly.”
Riccardo Pera: “ It was my first time here in Indianapolis, and to be honest, being at the top and winning overall is amazing for us. We came here, we had a strong package, and we executed the race very well, and I'm really proud of Ayhancan and Kyle, and also the team did a mega job. I can't ask for more!”
Ayhancan Guven: “ I came here two years ago with this team as the IGTC leader, but unfortunately we had a really, really bad race. But from that day, we kept saying to ourselves that we would come back stronger. This week, we came here to get the title for Kyle. During the race, Kyle did a really good stint, and we were hopeful that the strategy would pay off, and in the middle of the race we started to see that maybe we could also go for the overall win. From that moment we started to push with Riccardo in the car, and at the end it worked really well.”
Am Class – No. 11 MAD Joker Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO
Peter Dempsey: “ This place has always been special and kind to me. I've won a race here, a four-way finish back a long time ago. To come back here with Ben and Mark and have this opportunity to do it has been phenomenal. To give them a win is the least I could do. Glad I could get the win for the team.”
Ben Keating: “ It's just a great team effort. I would say we won as a team. Everybody did their job perfectly well. We all ran as hard as we could and it was a very close race at the end. I'm just grateful to be here.
Marc Austin: “ It gives me a lot of pride. Just to get to run with these two guys is an honor for me, and we've been waiting a long time for this. To come home and win the Indy 8 Hour is a big deal.”
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