Valentino Rossi and #46 BMW crew win IGTC Indianapolis 8 Hour in rain-soaked, red-flag affected race

Written by Owen Bradley

MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi, Kelvin van der Linde and Charles Weerts managed to claim victory at the Indianapolis Circuit, surviving the torrential rain which brought out a red flag, and outclassing their main competitors with a strategic masterstroke under Safety Car conditions to seize the lead of the race.

Credit: Dominic Loyer

The race started in dramatic fashion, with the initial No.51 Random Vandals Racing BMW squad losing their pole position due to a penalty, meaning the No.80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes squad of Maxime Martin, Jules Gounon and Lin Hodenius inherited pole position.

The No.80 Mercedes successfully defended their lead on the opening lap, with the No.777 WRT BMW of Raffaele Marciello, Augusto Farfus and Al Faisal Al Zubair attempting to look around the outside of the Mercedes in the opening corner. Meanwhile, the sister No.46 BMW of Valentino Rossi was overtaken by the No.99 Random Vandals Racing on the run into Turn 1, with Rossi later being overtaken by the No.75 Express Racing Mercedes of Charles Mostert around the outside at Turn 3.

This affected Rossi's run into the Turn 4-5 chicane and the back straight, with the No.51 Random Vandals Racing car coming through to claim 5th into Turn 6. A shocking start for Valentino Rossi and the No.46 WRT squad, who were forced into a recovery drive right from the outset.

Credit: Fred Hardy

Maro Engel in the No.888 Mercedes GMR Team would eventually overtake Rossi for 6th place after half an hour of racing, a torrid first hour for Rossi, who continued on for a double stint and did begin to make progress towards the end. Meanwhile, towards the front, the No.51 Random Vandals Racing BMW team were driving aggressively, clearly agitated by losing pole position due to a technical regulations issue on their car after Qualifying.

Philip Eng, driving the No.51, managed to push the BMW into second place after overtaking the sister No.99 car into Turn 6, Eng diving to the inside left-hander and successfully making the move stick, as the Austrian set his sights on the leading No.80 Mercedes just a few seconds up the road.

With the pressure mounting from Eng in the No.51 BMW, eventually the leading No.80 Mercedes of Lin Hodenius accidentally made contact with the No.61 Porsche at the right-hander of Turn 9, sending the Porsche into a spin and compromising the Mercedes on the exit of the corner onto the back straight. The No.80 Mercedes would be given a drive-through penalty for this incident, however Eng managed to put the No.51 BMW into the lead of the race on-track, overtaking the Mercedes down the inside into the long right-hander of Turn 3.

After the first round of pit stops, it was the No.777 Team WRT BMW who had the momentum, with Augusto Farfus behind the wheel. Farfus charged after the leading No.51 BMW and eventually managed to get up the inside of the No.51 into the penultimate corner, the pair running a tight apex and compromising their run into the final corner and thus the entire front straight, with the No.888 Mercedes of Tom Kalender slotting into second position.

However, just after Farfus handed the No.777 WRT BMW over to Al Zubair, they would unfortunately lose the lead of the race to the No.888 Mercedes of Luca Stolz, who had taken over from Kalender.

Credit: Fabian Lagunas

Meanwhile, in amongst all of the chaos, Valentino Rossi managed to keep the No.46 WRT BMW in contention, running in 4th position and just under 10 seconds away from the race leaders. Rossi had managed to find strong race pace in the latter stages of his stint, and brought the No.46 team back into the race, before handing over to Charles Weerts, who began attacking the No.51 BMW for third position.

Weerts eventually did manage to put the No.46 BMW inside the podium places, finding enough grip to send it around the outside of the No.51 BMW at the penultimate corner, claiming third place. Unfortunately for the No.51 crew, they would eventually be wheeled into the garage with a technical issue. Utter devastation for the team that secured pole, were put down to 10th on the grid, came back through to lead the race and had to eventually retire from the race.

At the halfway mark, the Top 3 were separated by just a couple of seconds, with the No.888 Mercedes of Luca Stolz leading the way, and the WRT BMW duo of Marciello (No.777) and Kelvin van der Linde (No.46) just behind.

Marciello eventually managed to take the lead of the race down the front straight and into Turn 1, sending the No.777 BMW back into the lead and giving a chance for the sister No.46 BMW crew, who eventually also managed to overtake the No.888 Mercedes into Turn 1, with Van Der Linde sending it to the inside from a fair distance behind, an incredible move to put the WRT squad 1-2.

Suddenly, the race would fall under Red Flag conditions due to lightning strikes in the area, and the rain began to seriously pick up. It was completely torrential conditions for the entire field, and a somewhat long red flag period began.

Credit: Dominic Loyer

However, the field would run under Safety Car conditions, and eventually the No.46 BMW opted to come into the pits to refuel, as all the cars needed to, but did so one lap earlier due to driver stint time. Somehow, they managed to come out on track ahead of the sister No.777 BMW and claimed the lead of the race, with the No.888 Mercedes actually taking second place.

An incredibly short-lived green flag attempt left us with the same running order, with Kelvin van der Linde driving the No.46 WRT BMW car to the finish line to claim the championship, and to give Valentino Rossi his maiden Intercontinental GT Challenge victory and first GT Endurance victory.