Wastegate Racing’s No. 32 Ferrari 499P was declared the GTP winner of Saturday’s Battle at the Brickyard after Race Stewards issued a 35-second post-race penalty to the No. 7 VSR Competición Porsche 963 for an incident with the No. 59 LMP2 car at Turn 12 with less than half an hour to go.
Jonathan López took the checkered flag first for VSR, but the penalty dropped the Spanish team to third in the official order. That promoted Niclas Pedersen and Selena Ward to victory for Wastegate Racing, 24.815 seconds clear of the No. 16 Infinity Fox Racing Acura ARX-06 of David Buckley and Fabian Rudde.
Wastegate Racing Wins the Sprint Cup at Indianapolis
The result completed a dramatic late-season Sprint Cup charge for the No. 32 Ferrari. Wastegate won the final two Sprint Cup races of the season at CTMP and Indianapolis to move to the top of the final table, finishing 20 points ahead of the No. 25 Tri-State Racing BMW M Hybrid V8.
For Ward, it continued a remarkable run in the class. She has now won three times in six GTP starts this season, a 50 percent strike rate. Pedersen, meanwhile, moved to nine career GTP wins, putting him one behind Álvaro Martínez’s class record of 10.
Team representative Kyle Birnie said the victory was more than Wastegate had expected after a difficult build-up. “Overall, we would have been very happy with second,” he said. “We couldn’t find a setup that worked well for Niclas and Selena, so we were hoping for a top five, or possibly a top three if things fell into our hands. Fighting for a win was great.”
Birnie added that VSR “had a great race” but that Wastegate was positioned to capitalize once the penalty was applied. “I’m a believer that if you are passing someone, you need to leave them space and make it clean,” he said. “Ultimately the No. 7 was penalized for another incident and lost the win because of it.”
Mello Converts Pole Into Early Control
The afternoon began under partly cloudy skies at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with the air temperature forecast at 26°C and a southeast wind pushing across the 2.44-mile, 14-turn road course. Thiago Mello put the No. 20 Bravo Snow Schatten BMW on pole with a 1:16.964, adding another qualifying highlight to a season full of front-row speed for the Brazilian squad.
Mello led the field away at 1:45 p.m. local time, but the race almost immediately continued a trend the series had warned about in the drivers’ meeting: another lap-one full-course yellow. Race Directors called the first of three full-course yellows in the opening minutes after an incident involving the No. 51 World Of SimRacing Team Cadillac, the No. 12 Delta Racing BMW, the No. 7 VSR Porsche and the No. 137 Gamma Sim Racing Ferrari.
The early caution shuffled the class order. The No. 96 Albrecht Motorsports Cadillac gained five places under yellow, while the No. 137 Ferrari, which had started second with Charlie Rudd, dropped 10 positions after contact. The first restart came roughly 10 minutes after the green flag.
Paul Botting Motorsport Leads During Early Pit Cycle
Oliver Clarke put the No. 62 Paul Botting Motorsport Acura into the lead on lap 9, giving one of the day’s GTP debutants a spell at the front, before Mello returned the No. 20 BMW to the lead on lap 14.
The middle of the opening stint was busy behind the leader. Christopher Daniel spun the No. 55 PAX Simsport Porsche from fourth to 14th, while the No. 12 Delta Racing BMW lost ground after early trouble and a penalty sequence. The No. 25 Tri-State BMW, which had arrived at Indianapolis leading the Sprint Cup standings, was also pulled into an untidy first half of the race after early BMW-on-BMW contact with the No. 12 and later technical difficulties that cost it time.
Race Control later issued a warning to the No. 55 Porsche for contact with the No. 32 Ferrari at Turn 13. The No. 55 also had a complicated afternoon with black flags, pit-lane-related issues and a drive-through for incident accumulation, eventually finishing tenth on 97 laps.
Second Full-Course Yellow Changes the Race Shape
The second full-course yellow came just before the first-hour mark and lasted until a restart a little after one hour and 15 minutes of race time. It was the longest caution period of the day and played a major role in shaping the fuel and driver-change picture.
The No. 20 BMW was back at the head of the class under that yellow, but Bravo Snow Schatten later pointed to that period as the moment the race began slipping away. Mello said the team “had some problems with strategy” and did not change drivers when the pits opened during the full-course yellow, which created fuel pressure later in the race.
Joao Caracelli said that once he got into the car, the issue was already clear. “We realized we wouldn’t have enough fuel to make it to the end,” he said. “I tried to manage it as efficiently as possible throughout my stint, but unfortunately we still came up just one lap short.”
The No. 20 ultimately led a race-high 68 laps but finished fifth, a result that again underlined Bravo Snow Schatten’s front-running pace without the matching payoff. “We need to fix the strategy problems and we need a bit more luck with the full-course yellows,” Mello said. “In the last races they have come at the worst possible moment for us.”
Final Hour Produces Constant GTP Lead Changes
The third and final full-course yellow came shortly after the 90-minute mark, with the restart coming inside the final hour. The race featured 12 GTP lead changes across 100 laps, and the decisive final phase saw the lead rotate through Wastegate, VSR, Delta Racing, Albrecht Motorsports, Bravo Snow Schatten and Paul Botting Motorsport.
Pedersen put the No. 32 Ferrari into the lead on lap 64. López then led for VSR on lap 70 before pit timing handed brief turns at the front to the No. 21 Delta Racing BMW of Felypi Sauner and the No. 96 Albrecht Cadillac of Maik Steinicke.
Caracelli moved the No. 20 BMW back ahead on lap 76, before 16-year-old Emma Ruiu led in her GTP debut for Paul Botting Motorsport in the No. 97 Acura. Ruiu had started from pit lane after an entry declaration violation, yet the No. 97 still found itself in the lead during the final hour before a spin dropped it from the lead group.
The No. 97 later received warnings for track limits and contact at Turn 1, then served a drive-through for incident accumulation. Alyssa Pelletier-Sharpe and Ruiu still brought the car home eighth, one lap down, after one of the more eventful afternoons in the class.
Turn 12 Penalty Decides the Official Winner
The key Race Stewards decision concerned the No. 7 VSR Porsche’s contact with the No. 59 Old Dogs Racing LMP2 car at Turn 12. The LMP2 entry was pushed off track and lost several positions, and the stewards issued López and VSR a 35-second post-race penalty.
That decision mattered because López had passed Pedersen late and then retaken the class lead on lap 99. The No. 7 also received warnings for track limits and for contact with the No. 32 Ferrari at Turn 7 during the late fight, but the time penalty that changed the winner came from the earlier Turn 12 incident with the LMP2 traffic.
Pedersen said the win was “really unexpected” after neither Wastegate driver felt fully comfortable with the car. “It was a handful in the race as well,” he said. “The strategy was just to keep it clean, survive and see what the race would bring us.”
On the late fight with VSR, Pedersen felt he could have been left more room. “Second would have been a good result for us,” he said. “So to come away with the win after all is even better.”
Infinity Fox Racing Charges From Eleventh to Second
Infinity Fox Racing produced the drive of the day on the official results sheet. The No. 16 Acura started 11th, gained nine positions and finished second with Buckley and Rudde, giving Buckley a podium in his GTP debut.
Buckley described it as “one hell of a debut” after a race built on patience rather than outright pace. “We simply drove our race,” he said. “We knew our pace wasn’t as strong as it could be, and we were there to gain experience, but we took the opportunities where we could. The strategy was kind to us, and luckily the technical problems I had early in the race didn’t come back to bite us.”
He said consistency was the biggest positive from his first race in the class. “I’m not super experienced in GTPs, so I had to get a lot of practice in,” Buckley said. “Only one incident point all race feels good for my confidence.”
Albrecht Protects Championship Lead as Tri-State Loses Sprint Cup
Albrecht Motorsports finished fourth with the No. 96 Cadillac of Maik Steinicke and Marc Scherschel, extending its streak of top-five finishes to four races. The No. 96 now leads the SportsCar Championship by just 50 points over the No. 32 Wastegate Ferrari heading to the season finale.
The No. 25 Tri-State Racing BMW endured a costly day. Geordi Vermeulen and Niko Loikkanen finished ninth, one lap down, and lost the Sprint Cup title by 20 points after arriving at Indianapolis as the leaders. Loikkanen called it “definitely disappointing,” especially after technical difficulties forced the car into the pits and cost valuable time.
“We can be proud of the season we’ve had, and it gives us plenty of motivation to come back stronger,” Loikkanen said. “The main thing is turning our pace into actual results. We know we have the pace to fight at the front, so at Petit Le Mans it’s about staying consistent, avoiding unnecessary incidents and hopefully getting a bit of luck on our side.”
Vision 1 Motorsports finished sixth with the No. 10 Ferrari of Kyle Allen and Jeremy Carter after starting 13th. Gamma Sim Racing’s No. 137 Ferrari, which had started second, recovered to seventh with Rudd and Finn Weiß. The No. 97 Paul Botting Motorsport Acura was eighth, Tri-State ninth and PAX Simsport tenth.
The No. 62 Paul Botting Motorsport Acura, which led early with Clarke, finished 11th after a difficult second half. The No. 12 Delta Racing BMW was 12th. The defending Sprint Cup champion No. 51 World Of SimRacing Team Cadillac and the No. 21 Delta Racing BMW were classified 13th and 14th respectively after exceeded maximum drive-time violations.
Post-Race Reactions
Marc Scherschel, #96 Albrecht Motorsports Cadillac: “We have a good feeling about the last race, but going into it as the hunted is unusual. We won’t change anything, though. I also have to admit that we are excited. It’s a huge opportunity just to have gotten into this position.”
Scherschel said Albrecht’s consistency has come from keeping risk under control. “We always try to stay clean and minimize the risk,” he said. “We don’t have the best speed, but we’re consistent, and we work really well together as a team. We weren’t fast enough today, so we had to be smart, and I think we did that really well.”
Marco Pereira, #51 World Of SimRacing Team Cadillac: “We had our minds too busy thinking about the timing of the last pit stop and when to pit to make sure we got to the checkered flag. That was a huge mistake from our side.”
Pereira said losing the Sprint Cup this way was “awful,” adding that the team had been on course to finish ahead of its rivals before the drive-time issue. Álvaro Martínez clarified that the No. 51 had entered the Sprint Cup finale second, five points behind the No. 25, and called the outcome “very difficult to accept.”
Francesc Andres Diaz, #7 VSR Competición Porsche: “It was really just bad luck. We got caught in the crossfire, and it’s a real shame. We were the fastest all weekend; we had the best setup, the best strategy and the best drivers. We are very unhappy about the penalty, but things are out of our hands.”
López said his car had been damaged from the second safety car period onward and that the late pass on the No. 32 was the only route he saw to the lead. “Even so, I have always been respectful on track and left space for my rivals,” he said.
Connor Botting, #97 Paul Botting Motorsport Acura: “Emma drove a fine race on debut. There will be pain when she thinks back on the could-have-been moments, but to be disappointed with eighth in your first race in such a competitive series shows what level she was operating at.”
Botting said the No. 97 showed “incredible pace,” while also praising Pelletier-Sharpe for holding the class fastest lap for a portion of the race. He added that both Paul Botting Motorsport Acuras had the speed to fight near the front, even if the results did not fully reflect it.
Road Atlanta Decides the SportsCar Championship
The Sprint Cup is complete, but the overall GTP championship is very much alive. The No. 96 Albrecht Motorsports Cadillac leads with 3840 points, only 50 ahead of the No. 32 Wastegate Racing Ferrari. The No. 25 Tri-State Racing BMW remains mathematically in the fight, 150 points behind the leader.
The class now turns toward Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia. First, there will be the official VSCA Road Atlanta Test on September 12 that gives teams and drivers a chance to prepare at length for the season finale. The fifth annual Petit Le mans will then follow one week later, September 19th and take the green flag at 14:00 GMT and will be broadcast live on GreenFlag TV, as the 2026 VSCA SportsCar Championship and 2026 Endurance Cup winners will be crowned.
Wastegate arrives with three wins in the last four races but also the memory of its Road America accident still fresh. Albrecht arrives as the hunted, with four straight top-five finishes and a narrow points lead. Tri-State still needs its first win of the season at exactly the moment when only a complete weekend may keep its title hopes alive.
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