- PROVISIONAL RESULTS - PDF Link
Delivery delays ensured AKKA ASP’s Mercedes-AMG didn’t arrive at Indianapolis until the early hours of this morning, but the team and Raffaele Marciello wasted no time getting up to speed by topping Pre-Qualifying.
Marciello, Dani Juncadella and Timur Boguslavskiy had no choice but to borrow a spare chassis from DXDT Racing yesterday, and that knowledge was sufficient for the Italian to set a session best of 1m134.054s before the halfway mark.
The 90-minute session, which began in slightly damp conditions, was punctuated by three red flag periods that played a part in a largely stagnant leaderboard after the initial moisture cleared. Indeed, Marciello’s time wasn’t challenged until the final 15 minutes when first Connor De Phillippi and then Ollie Millroy slotted into second and third places, respectively.
De Phillippi, the reigning Indy 8 Hour winner, lapped his Turner Motorsport BMW 0.178s shy of the leading Mercedes-AMG, while Inception Racing’s McLaren finished a further 0.033s behind.
Team WRT’s #37 Audi made it as many different manufacturers in the top-four after ending up a quarter-second behind Marciello and a further tenth clear of yesterday’s Free Practice pace-setters, Craft-Bamboo.
Lamborghinis filled positions six and seven – TR3’s Huracan leading the similar K-PAX car featuring newly crowned Fanatec GT World Challenge America Powered by AWS champions Jordan Pepper and Andrea Caldarelli.
Elsewhere in the GTWCA contingent, TR3 Racing's Pro/Am Lamborghini entry slotted second in the race-within-the-race entrants while GMG Racing's entry sat further behind, albeit only 0.3-seconds behind. The Silver class entrants also running in GTWCA were led by the #20 Wright Motorsports Porsche, clocking in at 1:34.915. GTWCA Am class entrants were paced by AF Corse's #61 Ferrari, running at 1:37.427.
Qualifying to determine the top-15 Pole Shootout contenders takes place at 2:00 pm EDT (-4 GMT) this afternoon.