Huber's Heinrich beats Gounon and Stolz in pole ShootOut blockbuster at the Brickyard

Huber Motorsport and Porsche have clinched their second pole position in as many Intercontinental GT Challenge Powered by Pirelli events after Laurin Heinrich beat Jules Gounon and Luca Stolz in a backwards and forwards Shootout tussle at Indianapolis this evening.

The Bomb Pop Porsche, as it’s been christened locally, repeatedly overhauled the Craft-Bamboo and GruppeM Mercedes-AMGs during the 15-minute session after Heinrich also topped qualifying earlier in the afternoon. The 1m22.707s pole time wasn’t quite as quick as his Q3 effort but did crucially undercut Gounon by 0.033s.

The result continues Huber’s impressive Intercontinental qualifying run that began with Matteo Cairoli claiming CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa pole with a Bronze class entry that then, as now, featured IGTC Independent Cup title challenger Antares Au. Alfred Renauer completes the team’s trio this weekend.

Heinrich’s heroics were all the more impressive given that Gounon took 8 Hour pole last year. And the French-Andorran was on course to go back-to-back when his late flyer pushed Huber’s Porsche down to second.

But Heinrich wasn’t finished and returned to pinch top spot by a narrow margin.

He’d already seen off Stolz, who ultimately finished third, on two occasions after Robby Foley and Gounon made the early running.

BMW’s three Pro-crewed entries finished fourth to sixth in the hands of Philipp Eng (Team WRT), Foley (BimmerWorld) and Augusto Farfus (Team WRT), while Wright Motorsport’s 911 GT3 R completed a top seven solely comprising IGTC nominations.

RS1’s Porsche ended the Intercontinental streak in eighth, one place ahead of the sole Ferrari – and second IGTC Independent Cup entry – of Sky Tempesta and Eddie Cheever III.

ST Racing’s BMW driven by Samantha Tan completed the top 10.

The penultimate round of this year’s Intercontinental GT Challenge Powered by Pirelli campaign, and Fanatec GT America season finale, goes green at 12:15 EDT (GMT -4) tomorrow. Watch it live on SRO’s GT World YouTube and Twitch channels.