INDIANAPOLIS – Sheldon van der Linde was relentless in his pursuit of Earl Bamber in the closing stages of the TireRack.com Battle On The Bricks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Van der Linde’s tenacity paid off when he guided the No. 24 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 past the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R with less than six minutes remaining in the two-hour, 40-minute IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship sprint race in front of the largest crowd for an IMSA race at the Speedway since the WeatherTech Championship returned to racing at the venue in 2023.
The 27-year-old South African held on to cross the Speedway’s famous “Yard of Bricks” finish line 2.926 seconds ahead of Bamber to earn BMW’s first overall and Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class win in association with longtime European partner Team WRT in IMSA competition. BMW previously won the Indianapolis round of the WeatherTech Championship when it was a six-hour race in 2024 with drivers Jesse Krohn and Philipp Eng and in partnership with locally based Team RLL.
Dries Vanthoor – who claimed his second career victory in IMSA competition – qualified the No. 24 BMW third fastest and held that position through his stint before handing the car to van der Linde just prior to halfway point. When action resumed with 48 minutes remaining after another round of pit stops under caution, van der Linde ran second to the No. 31 Cadillac – the GTP championship leader for manufacturers and Bamber’s co-driver Jack Aitken.
Van der Linde closed to within 0.3 of a second of Bamber as they worked through traffic with half an hour to go. A few minutes later, the cars made light side-to-side contact, with Bamber staying ahead. But van der Linde charged back as they came up to put a lap on the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class winning No. 64 Ford Racing Ford Mustang GT3.
They split the Mustang, driven by Dennis Olsen, between Turns 10 and 11 where the IMS road course rejoins the South short chute of the oval. But van der Linde held the inside line into the right-hand Turn 12, and he emerged decisively in front.
“I was pretty frustrated after the restart not to get past him earlier,” said van der Linde after his second career win in IMSA competition, and first since 2017 at Motul Petit Le Mans in Grand Touring Daytona (GTD). “My engineer said to me on the radio, ‘You’ve got one more pack of GT cars (traffic)’ with 10 minutes to go. And I knew that was my last chance to get him. Because on pace, they were just too fast for us today.
“He got stuck behind a GT car going into turn 10,” he continued. “I got a very good run and kind of went all the way to the inside, so he wasn’t able to see me in his mirrors. And yeah, I was willing to risk everything for the win today. I know how important it is for these guys (WRT) to get it.”
Van der Linde correctly suspected with Aitken comfortably leading the championship, Bamber wouldn’t force the issue.
“I knew obviously that they wouldn’t take too much risk being in the championship fight,” he said. “I had that in the back of my mind going into the race already. And that was our advantage - we could play elbows out and they couldn’t. I knew I had to use that advantage.”
The second-place finish for the No. 31 Cadillac, combined with a third-place finish for Kevin Estre and Laurin Heinrich in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963, means Aitken will head to the season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway with an unofficial 147-point advantage over Heinrich. Nick Yelloly and Renger van der Zande, who finished seventh at Indianapolis in the No. 93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06, are third and 271 points back.
Estre emerged from a first-corner incident that delayed both the sister No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport entry and also three Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class entries. Heinrich rallied from sixth to third in the final stint, but was unable to make a pass attempt on Bamber.
Aitken admitted that watching the closing laps with Bamber behind the wheel were nerve-racking. The No. 31 Cadillac has finished on the podium in seven of eight races this year.
“I don’t envy Earl for trying to hold them off for as long as he did at the end,” Aitken said. “But it’s a fantastic result. Takes us to Petit in a very strong position, and another podium in what’s been a really good year so far.”
No. 64 Mustang Holds off No. 4 Corvette; No. 96 Turner BMW Gets Emotional GTD Win
Once one of Britain’s finest automotive brands peeled into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway pit lane, the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class victory in the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks came down to a classic American battle between Ford and Chevrolet on the final tour of IMS’ 2.439-mile, 14-turn circuit.
Neither iconic brand yielded an inch, down to the final nail-biting lap of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In the end, Dennis Olsen in the No. 64 Ford Racing Ford Mustang GT3 fended – or maybe more accurately, fendered – off Nicky Catsburg in the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
Nikita Johnson, the recently crowned Indy NXT champion, had attempted to go long on a fuel and energy run aboard RLL Team McLaren’s No. 59 McLaren 720S GT3 EVO. But once he pitted, it left the door open for door banging between the leading Olsen and trailing Catsburg.
Olsen was already in the thick of the action, having previously been sandwiched by the two Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) leaders inside the final six minutes. Then on the last lap, Catsburg attempted an outside pass on Olsen for the lead heading into Turn 7. Simultaneously, another GTP car was charging inside both GTD PRO runners, forcing Olsen a little wide. His Mustang made contact with Catsburg’s Corvette, pushing it into the grass.
Both cars continued, with Olsen bringing home the first win of 2026 for himself and co-driver Ben Barker by 0.993 of a second over Catsburg and Tommy Milner in the Corvette. Sandy Mitchell and Andrea Caldarelli completed the podium in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Temerario GT3, ending their two-race win streak.
The triumph is Olsen’s third in IMSA competition, the first for Barker and the second straight at Indy for the Ford Racing GTD PRO program.
“Luckily, we had a strong Ford Mustang GT3 that held up together,” Olsen said. “I had a lot of big battles in that last stint. Nicky is a good attacker and I knew what he was trying to do, but at the same time, I had a GTP coming up the inside and that made it really tight at the apex of that corner. We had some contact and we came out on the good side of it, which was great.
“It feels amazing that we can pull off this win,” Olsen added. “We've been chasing it for a long time with Ben this season and for the team and Ford Racing. Yeah, super proud.”
Catsburg had no issue with Olsen’s tactics, knowing the Norwegian couldn’t hold the normal inside line in Turn 7 with the GTP car to his left.
“Last lap, the team told me to be smart about this,” Catsburg said. “And I was like I'm only going to go for it when there's a clear opportunity. I think there was, and we had a good, fair battle. That was pretty cool, we let each other live. He pushed me wide in (Turn) 7, but he had to because there was a car on his inside.”
Barker also credited the team’s timely strategy to pit just before a full-course caution with 65 minutes remaining in the two-hour, 40-minute race.
“It was pretty much everything,” the Brit said. “It's part of the game of when you box (pit) and you're always taking a bit of a punt. From myself boxing early, that kind of set the trend for the rest of the race and then, yeah, (the final stop) was obviously good timing. It shuffled us to the front. I don't think we had the quickest car today, but we maximized what we had and came away with the win in the end.”
Catsburg, Milner and the No. 4 Corvette took the unofficial GTD PRO championship lead with the runner-up result. They hold a 47-point advantage over Neil Verhagen, Connor De Phillippi and the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO, which finished sixth at Indy. Caldarelli, Mitchell and the No. 9 Lamborghini trail the PMR BMW for second by just six points heading to the October 3 season finale, the Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
