| Weathering the Weather; Title Table-Setter; Checkers or Championships September 18, 2025By David PhillipsIMSA Wire Service |
| DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – In its 117-year history, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) has witnessed countless motorsports firsts from various vehicles and interesting iterations. Whether it’s been open-wheel cars, stock cars, motorcycles or sports cars on either the historic IMS 2.5-mile oval or its emerging 2.439-mile road course, now into its second decade in its current layout and incarnation, winning at Indy means you’ve conquered an iconic facility and you’ll engage in a long lip lock with the fabled bricks. IMSA made a “first” for Indianapolis in 2024 with the first six-hour TireRack.com Battle On The Bricks. What it will serve up for an encore remains to be seen, but per usual, the 53 cars across four IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship classes have a keen eye on being first across that yard of bricks. Weathering the Weather… Again? Last year’s six-hour race offers competitors oodles of information for this year’s preparation across chassis setup, fuel and energy usage and tire management. But what it offered in spades last year was a typically Indiana weather mix of heavy to light rain, then bone dry conditions later in the six-hour race. Variable weather often leaves drivers and strategists playing forecasters. |
| “Last year at Indy, here, my teammate had the torrential downpour and the red flags and all the chaos. And I got in right after, and it was bone dry the whole time. And it’s been that way my entire career,” said Elliott Skeer, who co-drove the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) winning No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R with Adam Adelson and Jan Heylen in 2024. Fellow 2024 IMS winner Laurin Heinrich, who shared the No. 77 AO Racing “Rexy” Porsche with Michael Christensen en route to the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) win added, “You’ve got to be prepared for everything. I’m just coming home from Suzuka, where the weather was all over the place in Japan, and extremely unpredictable. I think that really taught me again that just being prepared never hurts. But having the experience from last year in both conditions with the transition helps us preparing for the race the following year.” IMS is notoriously sensitive to changing weather conditions, particularly on its oval when late afternoon “Happy Hour” hits and the pit straightaway and the oval’s Turn 1 are bathed in shadows and track conditions are at their peak. The road course offers similar challenges. How will track conditions evolve from the mid-day start to the race’s final hour? What will teams make of changes in wind direction? How much will the track “grip up” (or down) as Michelin rubber is put down over the course of six hours of racing? And as teams often try to “back-time” their pit stops to the finish, how will the weather impact the strategies? The combination of educated guesses and hard data will determine the performance and decisions. Title Table-Setter Title fights across the WeatherTech Championship and IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup will take center stage this weekend. Clinching scenarios are remote, but as the penultimate race of 2025, Sunday will set the table for Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. The WeatherTech Championship Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) season championship driver battle sees Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 just 75 points clear of teammates Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy in the sister No. 7 car. “It’s nicer to be in that position than behind,” Jaminet admitted. “If we have a very good weekend in Indy, we have kind of our future in our hands towards the end.” Nasr added, “What I’m looking forward to is to have a cleaner weekend on the No. 7 car since the last two races haven’t been great for us. We’re looking for a solid weekend in Indianapolis to catch back up in that title fight.” AO Racing’s Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) title quest is in good shape with PJ Hyett and Dane Cameron in the No. 99 ORECA LMP2 07. The duo is 107 points clear of Daniel Goldburg in the No. 22 United Autosports USA ORECA. On the heels of their VIRginia International Raceway win, Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims lead the GTD PRO championship points standings by 53 points in the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R over Albert Costa in the No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3. “Definitely the championship is the new target,” Garcia said. “And also winning at Indianapolis which is one of the few races that I haven’t won either.” With a 112-point lead in GTD over Casper Stevenson (No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo), Russell Ward and Indy Dontje have the largest WeatherTech Championship class lead heading to Indy as the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 seeks to double up titles. “Our goal is just to race the racetrack and see where it ends up, and make sure that we finish in the top 10 in the next two races and then I think you can update that statistic to two-time champion,” Ward said. Among GTP manufacturers, Porsche leads Acura by just 45 points. In GTD PRO, Chevrolet tops BMW by 81 points and in GTD, Mercedes-AMG paces Ferrari by 186. Current Michelin Endurance Cup leaders are the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 (GTP), No. 22 United Autosports USA and No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA LMP2 07s (LMP2), No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO (GTD PRO) and No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 and No. 21 Af Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 (GTD). Points are awarded here at the 3- and 6-hour marks, so monitor the top three per class here. The in-team battles will be worth watching, and it’ll be intriguing to see how Porsche Penske – which only has one combined podium finish the last three races – fares at the track that Roger Penske, quite literally, owns. Checkers, Not Championships For those outside of championship contention in either the full season or Michelin Endurance Cup, a win at the fabled Indianapolis Motor Speedway will go a long way towards salvaging the season for the drivers, team and manufacturer (to say nothing of sponsors). Two longtime manufacturers, for instance, remain in search of their elusive first wins of the year. Cadillac and Lexus are looking to get on the board for the first time in 2025 and become the 16th and/or 17th of IMSA’s 18 automotive manufacturers (across all IMSA-sanctioned series) to win a race this season. |
| Could there be a surprise winner or podium finisher in GTP, as well? The Lamborghini SC63 had its best run of 2024 at Indianapolis and impressed its last outing at Watkins Glen. The same is true of the improving Aston Martin Valkyrie. And JDC Miller MotorSports’ Porsche 963 scored its first GTP podium at Indy last year. Those vying for a championship will be walking a tightrope between the aggression needed to win the Battle On The Bricks and the prudence required to claim a title (or titles), while those with little or nothing to lose in the standings will be singularly focused on winning the race. Out of the running for Michelin Endurance Championship? Why worry about the points awarded to the front runners at the three-hour mark? Focus on what it takes to win the race. Similarly, if disappointing results in June and July dashed your hopes of a WeatherTech Championship, don’t hesitate to make a Hail Mary strategy gamble . . . or a low percentage overtaking maneuver. What it all portends is an action- and strategy-packed weekend of sports car racing. Be sure to catch all the action on NBC at 3 p.m. ET Sunday, with full streaming on Peacock (11:30 a.m.), IMSA.tv and IMSA’s official YouTube channel (11:35 a.m.) featuring IMSA Radio’s global feed. |
