INDIANAPOLIS — A large rain storm, a lengthy lightning delay and a late strategic masterstroke helped Team WRT take the win in Saturday’s (Oct. 18) Indianapolis 8 Hour to conclude the 2025 Intercontinental GT Challenge.
The No. 46 BMW M4 GT3 EVO co-driven by Kelvin Van Der Linde, Charles Weerts and Valentino Rossi won the race under the safety car. With van der Linde behind the wheel, all the South African had to do was keep the BMW on the road in the event of another late race full course yellow.
Van Der Linde’s wish was granted thanks to the stalled No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes AMG GT3 EVO of Jules Gounon that blocked the pit lane entry. After the stricken car was removed, race control did not resume green flag racing conditions due to the water on the circuit after torrential rain saturated the circuit.
GruppeM Racing’s Maro Engel, Tom Kalender and Luca Stolz were second in their Mercedes. The second Team WRT BMW of Al Faisal Al Zubair, Augusto Farfus and Raffaele Marciello was third, followed by Random Vandals Racing’s Conor Daly, Connor de Phillippi and Kenton Koch. Rennsport One’s Jan Heylen, Alessio Picariello and Alex Sedgwick were fifth.
The race began under clear skies and remarkably ran nearly half distance before any safety car intervention was needed. Lone Star Racing’s Lin Hodenius started from the pole and opened up a couple of seconds over Random Vandals Racing’s Philipp Eng.
Things were looking good for the part-time IMSA team until Hodenius had contact with the Earl Bamber Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R driven by Adrian d’Silva 45 minutes into the race. D’Silva spun out and Hodenius was given a drive-through penalty. The penalty dropped Hodenius to 10th. With the lack of interruption in the first half of the race, then the rain, LSR was never really able to make up for it.
Eng, then Varun Choksey led until Farfus ran him down early in the third hour to take the advantage with Kalender in tow. Random Vandals Racing’s No. 51 eventually went behind the wall due to throttle issues and fell out of the hunt.
GruppeM Racing and Team WRT’s No. 777 fought throughout the third hour before Weerts in the No. 46 entered the battle in his own right.
Wright Motorsports was a big contender in last year’s race and came up just short of overall victory. With the same driver lineup, they were thought to be contenders. However, Adam Adelson collided with CrowdStrike by Riley’s George Kurtz and spun out early in the fourth hour. The car suffered significant damage that ultimately put them out.
As the race got closer to halfway, large rain clouds gathered near the circuit. Just prior to the halfway point, it started to rain lightly at the track. However, this light rain was accompanied by lightning strikes. That meant that the race had to be red flagged until lightning was no longer in the area. While the race was red-flagged, the heavens opened and doused the track with rain.
The race remained under red flag conditions until the race had just over 90 minutes remaining on the clock with the No. 777 Team WRT BMW of Al Zubair, Farfus and Marciello leading. The timing of the yellow flag returning reminded everybody of the maximum stint length time of 65 minutes.
The WRT team brought van der Linde onto pit road to complete the process of resetting his driving stint behind the wheel. The process for that? Simple. Stop in your pit stall, switch off your engine, switch it back on, and drive back onto the track.
Instead of sending van der Linde back out immediately, the team timed the stop so their car reached the end of pit road after the race’s final 65 minutes began, and the 2025 24 Hours of Spa co-winner caught up to the back of the pack under yellow. With the majority of the leaderboard doing the same thing the following lap, the pit exit remained closed until all cars on track passed the pit exit.
That allowed van der Linde and Engel to get ahead of the No. 777. When Gounon brought out another yellow, van der Linde just had to deal with the wet conditions at reduced speed to take the overall win.
Outside of the Intercontinental GT Challenge, championships in GT World Challenge America powered by AWS were also on the line. Daly, de Phillippi and Koch’s fourth-place finish was good enough to give de Phillippi and Koch the Pro class championship. For Koch, it was his second championship of the day as he clinched the Pirelli GT4 America SprintX Silver class title on Saturday morning.
In Pro-Am, Herberth Motorsport’s Dustin Blattner, Dennis Marschall and Alfred Renauer earned the class victory in eighth overall, one lap behind the overall winners. Wright Motorsports’ Antares Au, Loek Hartog and Patric Niederhauser were third, followed by Turner Motorsport’s Robby Foley, Patrick Gallagher and Justin Rothberg. The Heart of Racing’s Gray Newell, Zacharie Robichon and Darren Turner were fourth in their Aston Martin, while Archangel Motorsports’ Todd Coleman, Thomas Merrill and Aaron Telitz were fifth.
Turner Motorsport’s third-place finish was good enough for Foley and Rothberg to earn the Pro-Am championship for the second year in a row. It’s the second championship of the weekend for Rothberg as he clinched the SRO3 championship in GT America powered by AWS Friday afternoon.
Finally, AF Corse’s Conrad Grunewald, Oswaldo Negri Jr. and Jay Schreibman finished 17th overall to win the Am class. Negri and Schreibman also claimed the GT World Challenge America powered by AWS Am championship.
Intercontinental GT Challenge/GT World Challenge America powered by AWS Indianapolis 8 Hour Unofficial Results
Christopher DeHarde has covered IndyCar racing and the Road to Indy for various outlets since 2014. In addition to open wheel racing, DeHarde has also covered IMSA and various short track racing events around Indiana. Originally from New Orleans, DeHarde moved to the Indianapolis area in 2017 to further pursue a career as a motorsports writer.