Catsburg Inherits GTD PRO Pole at Indianapolis for Corvette

The second-to-last race of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season will see a pre-race grid change, as the second qualifying entry in the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class will move to the front of the GT field for Sunday’s six-hour TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

During Saturday’s 15-minute qualifying session for the 35 cars split between 13 GTD PRO and 22 GT Daytona (GTD) class entries, Laurin Heinrich appeared to have secured his maiden Motul Pole Award in his first WeatherTech Championship qualifying attempt, aboard the returning “Rexy” livery of the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R (992).

However, following his apparent pole position lap, IMSA officials found a technical violation for ground clearance that will erase that time and qualifying position. Heinrich’s No. 77 AO Racing Porsche will move to the rear of the combined GTD PRO and GTD field, as cars within the GT category are not gridded by class order but by qualifying times for both classes.

Perhaps more crucially for the GTD PRO class championship leader, it also negates an anticipated qualifying pole position points boost. Prior to the infraction discovered by IMSA, Heinrich was poised to secure 35 points for the top spot and extend his 17-point lead over Ross Gunn to 27 points.

Instead, Gunn and co-driver Alex Riberas move up from a provisional sixth place in class on the grid to fifth in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo. Heinrich and returning co-driver Michael Christensen will start 13th in GTD PRO.

That shifts the pre-weekend points total of Heinrich being up 17 points (2,519-2,502) to up just nine points (2,537-2,528) heading into the race.

For the revised GTD PRO order, Nicky Catsburg will move up to the pole in the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R he shares with Tommy Milner.

Catsburg posted a best lap of 1 minute, 23.209 seconds (105.521 mph) around the 2.439-mile, 14-turn IMS road course. This time is enough to secure Catsburg his third Motul Pole Award of the season and his WeatherTech Championship career, with the first two achieved earlier this year at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and Road America.

“It's nice to be on pole for tomorrow,” Catsburg said. “It's a shame for the 77, but at the same time it's a nice surprise for me and the team. Qualifying is a little irrelevant when it comes to these long races. But it is good to be there. It proves that we have done good work in practice and what we are doing is working. We can build on that for the race, and I’m very pleased with where we are starting.”

Catsburg’s time was 0.059-seconds behind Heinrich. The new pole time is now just 0.036-seconds clear of new second starter Mike Rockenfeller, who will share the No. 64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3 with Harry Tincknell.

The No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3, which won the last GTD PRO race at VIR, lines up third ahead of the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R.

Grenier Continues Korthoff/Preston Mercedes-AMG Momentum with GTD Pole

The No. 32 Korthoff/Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 is on a roll in GTD. Mikael Grenier won his first Motul Pole Award at Road America, and then he and Kenton Koch won the team’s first race at VIRginia International Raceway. Now, Grenier captured his second season and career pole in three races as he, Koch and the returning Mike Skeen will roll off from the top spot of a 22-car GTD class field.

Grenier’s best time of 1 minute, 23.537 seconds (105.107 mph) was less than four tenths of a second off the GTD PRO track record, but 0.262-seconds quicker than second place in GTD, in the form of VIR polesitter Giammarco Levorato in the No. 55 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3.

“It’s a special place. I came here once during IndyCar and it’s full of magic,” Grenier said of Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We struggled a lot in the first two practices, but we fixed some issue we had on the car. We need to be quick in traffic, keep it in one piece for five hours and then sprint for an hour.”

The No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 will start third, just ahead of championship leader Russell Ward in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.

Ward and Philip Ellis came into Indianapolis with a 284-point lead (2718-2434) over Turner’s Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher and seek to secure the GTD title a round early if they leave with at least a 385-point lead over second place. Even if they don’t mathematically secure the title this weekend, Ward and Ellis could position themselves to do so merely by leaving the starting grid for the 10-hour season finale on Oct. 12 at Motul Petit Le Mans, at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.

Results are HERE