Barbosa and Fittipaldi Take Victory at Indianapolis

The Winner (Photo: Don Andersen/RIS)

JOAO BARBOSA AND CHRISTIAN FITTIPALDI PILOT CORVETTE PROTOTYPE TO TUDOR SPORTSCAR WIN AT INDY
Scott Pruett and Sage Karam Take Second in Ford/Riley, Viper Wins GT Le Mans Class

INDIANAPOLIS -RIS- In near-perfect weather, Joao Barbosa and former Indy car driver Christian Fittipaldi drove a near-perfect race to win the TUDOR United SportCar Championship’s Brickyard Grand Prix on the 2.439-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.

The two Portugese-speaking drivers (one from Portugal, one from Brazil) launched forward in the #5 Corvette Daytona Prototype, passing the pole-sitting HPD ARX-03b of Scott Sharp and Ryan Dalziel at the seventh corner of Lap 1, and didn’t look back.

“It was definitely and awesome race for us,” said Fittipaldi, who was rookie of the year here in Indianapolis for the 1995 Indy 500. “All the stars aligned. Hat’s off to the team.”

“I kept asking ‘Are we going to need fuel?’, and the team just said, ‘Keep doing what you’re doing.’” Barbosa said of the closing laps.

The win puts the #5 team first in the Prototype championship.

Photos of today's TUDOR and Continental Tire sports car races (the latter won by Robin Liddell and Andrew Davis in the Stevenson Camaro Z/28.R) can be found here:

TUDOR United SportsCar Championship

Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge

The three-caution race was punctuated by yellows for debris from the track itself, as the curbs in corners began to come up under the heavy traffic of both the TUDOR and previously-held Continental Tire SportsCar Series races.

The Prototype class top three were Barbosa/Fittipaldi, Scott Pruett/Memo Rojas/Sage Karam, and Richard Westbrook/Michael Valiente.

It was the third second-place finish in the last three years for Pruett and Rojas.

The Prototype Challenge class was won by Canadian Chris Cumming and England’s Jack Hawksworth’s ORECA FLM09.

In the perennially hyper-competitive GT Le Mans class, the polesitting Ferrari 458 of former F1 pilot Giancarlo Fisichella and Pierre Kaffer commanded the P1 in class for a good part of the beginning of the race, even as pressure built from the Porsche factory #911 of Nick Tandy and Richard Lietz.

The IMS road course rewards raw power, and Dodge’s Viper is never short of that. Jonathan Bomarito took full advantage of that, moving the #93 Viper SRT to P1, finishing ahead of the Ferrari by 10.789 seconds.

Patrick Long brought the Long/Michael Christensen factory Porsche #912 in third close behind the Ferrari.

The second-place #62 Ferrari of Risi Competizione went on to win the Green Challenge.

The Daytona GT field was led by Alessandro Balzan and Jeff Westphal in the #63 Ferrari 458, beating the second-place combination of Christopher Haase and Bryce Miller in the #48 Audi R8 by a full lap.

From here, both the TUDOR and Continental Tire series head to the beer and brat country of Road America, Wisconsin, in two weeks’ time.

TUDOR United SportsCar Championship

BRICKYARD GRAND PRIX
Indianapolis Motor Speedway (2.439 Miles)
Race Time 2:46.02

July 25, 2014

UNOFFICIAL RESULTS

FP FCP SP SCP CLASS CAR   DRIVER TYPE T LAPS   GAP GAPCLS FAST DRIVER
1 1 4 4 P 5   Joao Barbosa Corvette DP C 108   - - - - - -   Christian Fittipaldi
2 2 6 6 P O1   Scott Pruett Ford EcoBoost/Riley C 108   48.964 48.964   Sage Karam
3 3 6 6 P 90   Richard Westbrook Corvette DP C 108   52.160 3.196   Richard Westbrook
4 4 7 7 P 10   Ricky Taylor Corvette DP C 108   58.309 6.149   Jordan Taylor
5 5 1 1 P 1   Ryan Dalziel HPD ARX-03b C 108   59.595 1.286   Ryan Dalziel
6 6 8 8 P 60   Oswaldo Negri Jr Ford EcoBoost/Riley C 107   1 laps 1 laps   Oswaldo Negri Jr
7 7 2 2 P 2   Johannes van Overbeek HPD ARX-03b C 107   1 laps 11.763   Johannes van Overbeek
8 8 3 3 P 42   Ho Pin Tung Nissan Morgan C 107   1 laps 9.378   Gustavo Yacaman
9 1 16 7 PC O8   Jack Hawksworth ORECA FLM09 C 107   1 laps - - -   Jack Hawksworth
10 2 10 1 PC 9   Bruno Junqueira ORECA FLM09 C 107   1 laps 1.422   Bruno Junqueira
11 3 49 10 PC 54   Colin Braun ORECA FLM09 C 107   1 laps 5.190   Colin Braun
12 4 12 3 PC 38   David Ostella ORECA FLM09 C 107   1 laps 6.391   David Ostella
13 9 19 10 P O7   Joel Miller Mazda SKYACTIV-D C 106   2 laps 1 laps   Joel Miller
14 1 23 3 GTLM 93   Jonathan Bomarito SRT Viper GTS-R M 105   3 laps - - -   Jonathan Bomarito
15 10 20 11 P 70   Tom Long Mazda SKYACTIV-D C 105   3 laps 1 laps   Tom Long
16 2 21 1 GTLM 62   Pierre Kaffer Ferrari F458 Italia M 105   3 laps 10.789   Giancarlo Fisichella
17 3 28 8 GTLM 912   Patrick Long Porsche 911 RSR M 105   3 laps 0.348   Patrick Long
18 4 26 6 GTLM 3   Antonio Garcia Chevrolet Corvette C7.R M 105   3 laps 7.329   Antonio Garcia
19 5 30 10 GTLM 4   Oliver Gavin Chevrolet Corvette C7.R M 105   3 laps 2.382   Oliver Gavin
20 6 25 5 GTLM 55   Bill Auberlen BMW Z4 GTE M 105   3 laps 12.427   Andy Priaulx
21 7 22 2 GTLM 56   Dirk Mueller BMW Z4 GTE M 105   3 laps 2.933   John Edwards
22 5 14 5 PC 52   Gunnar Jeannette ORECA FLM09 C 105   3 laps 2 laps   Gunnar Jeannette
23 6 11 2 PC 25   Sean Rayhall ORECA FLM09 C 104   4 laps 1 laps   Sean Rayhall
24 8 24 4 GTLM 91   Marc Goossens SRT Viper GTS-R M 103   5 laps 2 laps   Marc Goossens
25 1 39 9 GTD 63   Alessandro Balzan Ferrari 458 Italia C 102   6 laps - - -   Alessandro Balzan
26 2 38 8 GTD 48   Christopher Haase Audi R8 LMS C 101   7 laps 1 laps   Christopher Haase
27 3 32 2 GTD 33   Jeroen Bleekemolen SRT Viper GT3-R C 101   7 laps 6.772   Jeroen Bleekemolen
28 9 27 7 GTLM 17   Wolf Henzler Porsche 911 RSR F 101   7 laps 2 laps   Wolf Henzler
29 4 33 3 GTD 555   Townsend Bell Ferrari 458 Italia C 101   7 laps 1.462   Townsend Bell
30 5 40 10 GTD 22   Leh Keen Porsche 911 GT America C 101   7 laps 12.283   Leh Keen
31 6 35 5 GTD 23   Mario Farnbacher Porsche 911 GT America C 101   7 laps 0.436   Mario Farnbacher
32 7 36 6 GTD OO7   James Davison Aston Martin V12 Vantage C 101   7 laps 6.211   James Davison
33 8 34 4 GTD 45   Spencer Pumpelly Audi R8 LMS C 101   7 laps 10.454   Spencer Pumpelly
34 9 44 14 GTD 27   Andrew Davis Porsche 911 GT America C 101   7 laps 6.935   Andrew Davis
35 10 45 15 GTD 73   Mike Skeen Porsche 911 GT America C 101   7 laps 3.447   Mike Skeen
36 11 37 7 GTD 58   Jan Heylen Porsche 911 GT America C 101   7 laps 0.837   Jan Heylen
37 12 43 13 GTD 44   Andy Lally Porsche 911 GT America C 101   7 laps 13.715   Andy Lally
38 13 46 16 GTD 35   Dion von Moltke Audi R8 LMS C 98   10 laps 3 laps   Dion von Moltke
39 14 42 12 GTD 46   Charles Espenlaub Audi R8 LMS C 98   10 laps 11.327   Charles Espenlaub
40 15 31 1 GTD 94   Dane Cameron BMW Z4 C 96   12 laps 2 laps   Dane Cameron
41 7 18 9 PC 85   Stephen Simpson ORECA FLM09 C 93   15 laps 11 laps Stephen Simpson
42 8 17 8 PC 7   John Martin ORECA FLM09 C 91   17 laps 2 laps   John Martin
43 16 41 11 GTD 81   Damien Faulkner Porsche 911 GT America C 85   23 laps 11 laps Damien Faulkner
44 10 29 9 GTLM 911   Nick Tandy Porsche 911 RSR M 65   43 laps 36 laps Nick Tandy
45 9 13 4 PC 88   Martin Plowman ORECA FLM09 C 34   74 laps 57 laps Doug Bielefeld
46 10 15 6 PC 8   Mirco Schultis ORECA FLM09 C 21   87 laps 13 laps Mirco Schultis
47 17 47 17 GTD 19   Mark Kvamme Porsche 911 GT America C 19   89 laps 66 laps Kvamme/Pobst
48 11 9 9 P 31   Burt Frisselle Corvette DP C 13   95 laps 92 laps Burt Frisselle
49 18 48 18 GTD 18   Randy Probst Porsche 911 GT America C 0   108 laps 19 laps
 

Tom Beeler

Tom has been a contributor to RIS since 1992. He was invited to join the staff as a full-time reporter/editor in 1995, and has covered IndyCar, Formula 1, NASCAR, Grand-Am, ALMS and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In addition to his RIS work, Tom has been a contributor for General Motors, Nissan, Toyota and the ACO.

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Volume 2014, Issue 7, Posted 11:20 PM, 07.25.2014