INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana – Winning Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing teams Winward Racing and Korthoff Preston Motorsports clinched the 2024 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar GT Daytona (GTD) Manufacturer Championship right at the start of the Battle on The Bricks and then spent the remainder of the wet and wild six-hour endurance race closing in on more year-end team and driver honors Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS). The No. 32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 finished third in GTD after co-drivers Mikael Grenier, Mike Skeen and Kenton Koch battled in the lead pack the entire race from the pole starting position. WeatherTech Championship GTD points leaders Winward Racing took the checkered flag just seconds after the No. 32 team for a fifth-place finish with team drivers Russell Ward, Philip Ellis, and Indy Dontje in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3.
The Winward and Korthoff Preston teams have combined for a WeatherTech Championship series-leading five Mercedes-AMG GT3 victories and four more podium finishes in the year’s first nine races. The unmatched run of success gave Mercedes-AMG a comfortable GTD manufacturer points lead going into the IMS race and Grenier all but sealed the championship by winning his second GTD pole in the last three races on Saturday. All that was needed to clinch the manufacturer crown Sunday was for the Mercedes-AMG GT3 GTD contingent to take the green flag.
With Mercedes-AMG’s first IMSA WeatherTech Manufacturer Championship in the books, only next month’s Motul Petit Le Mans 10-hour race remains on the 2024 schedule. Both the Winward and Korthoff teams will fight to the finish there for several different season championship honors.
Winward has led the WeatherTech GTD driver and team championships all season after securing its first of a series-high four wins in the Rolex 24 At Daytona in January. The No. 57 team and drivers bring a 222-point lead in both championships to the Petit Le Mans finale.
With all tiebreaker scenarios in Winward’s favor as the GTD race-win leader, any finish ahead of – or even several spots behind – its lone title rival in Atlanta will seal the first IMSA GTD championships for Winward.
A recent run of success for the Korthoff team has elevated the No. 32 team and Grenier into third place in the GTD team and driver standings. Catching the second-place competitor 271 points ahead would be a tall order, but Grenier and the No. 32 are a comfortable 300 points clear of their nearest challenger, which closing driver Koch kept just behind him in fourth place in the closing stages of Sunday’s race.
The additional titles on the line in the finale are the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup (IMEC) championships that award the top performers in the year’s five endurance races. Korthoff’s third-place finish in Indianapolis was enough to clinch the IMEC GTD Manufacturer Championship for Mercedes-AMG for the second straight year, and now both Korthoff and Winward are part of a tight three-way battle for the respective driver and team titles.
Korthoff, Skeen, Koch and Grenier are the defending IMEC GTD team and driver champions and join Winward in having a shot at taking the titles this year. The Winward team and drivers lead both championships with 35 points while Korthoff is third in each with 31 points. The second-place team and drivers have 34 points.
The Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing GTD effort at Indy was bolstered by the return of the No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of team co-drivers Salih Yoluç, Rui Andrade and Scott Andrews. The team joined several others in battling through wet and treacherous conditions for nearly the first half of Sunday’s race but soon found some pace and grip in the drying conditions.
The race seemed to be coming to Lone Star in the closing hours only for the team to literally be knocked from contention by a GTD competitor more than 20 laps down. The No. 80 returned to the race after being retrieved from a gravel trap but was then four laps down after the needless delay, crossing the finish line 15th in the GTD running order.
A fourth Mercedes-AMG Motorsport customer team, the No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, returned to the GTD Pro ranks at Indy for the first time since Daytona. Team owner and driver Kenny Habul called on his Australian countrymen Chaz Mostert, the Australian Supercar star, and Mercedes-AMG Junior driver Jordan Love for the six-hour Indy effort.
After persevering through some technical issues on Friday and the treacherous wet opening half of the race, the No. 75 was at its best in the final two hours. The team fought back from a lap down to get Mostert in a position to battle with their GTD contenders, but ultimately not enough laps were left before the race timed out and the No. 75 took a seventh-place finish on the lead lap.
The season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans takes place at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, October 9 – 12.
Mikael Grenier, Driver – No. 32 Korthoff Preston Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3: “We made the right calls at the right time. We were on the right strategy the whole race, everyone did well, we had amazing pit stops, and my teammates did great. Good weekend, the car is still in one piece, pole position, third place points and the manufacturer championship for Mercedes-AMG. It’s great, I love the brand and being able to race a lot with Mercedes-AMG. IMSA is not the easiest championship because you have many points available in the endurance events, long races, sprint races, a lot of changing strategy and a lot of action on track, so it is great for Mercedes-AMG to win this championship and hopefully we can defend the title next year.”
Russell Ward, Driver – No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: “A really tough weekend for us, but we are a championship caliber team, and we can recover from anything. As disappointed as the team is after winning here last year, it is still a good result with a top five, and if we can go into the finale and do the same thing, we will win the championship. That’s just where our focus is now. The Winward guys did an amazing job getting us back up there. We will take this one on the chin as a learning experience and move on to the next.”
Rui Andrade, Driver – No. 80 Lone Star Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: “It’s always a bit sour leaving these races when we know we could have done a lot more. The truth is the Mercedes-AMG GT3 is so strong. We feel it, it is such a pleasure to drive always, and it’s quick. We had a bit of a difficult wet stint in the first half of the race, but when were able to get on slicks, Scott and I were both making moves. We were racing and making some recovery. It was starting to come to us and then we were hit by a guy who was more than 20 laps down. To do something like that is just so silly, ruining our race completely, especially when they really weren’t fighting for something. It’s motorsport, these things happen, and it is really frustrating, but in these situations, you have to focus on the positive. Our positive is that the car was good. Now we head to Petit Le Mans, on a track I won at two years ago, and I am happy to be going back. I think if we put it all together, we have a driver package and a team package to get a good result.”
Chaz Mostert, Driver – No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: “It was a good experience. Any time you can race in IMSA and get in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 is really cool. Thanks to Kenny again for the opportunity. He has done this twice for me now, and I have been able to experience Spa and now Indianapolis, two tracks I have really wanted to do. A little bit gutted with the result as we spent the first four hours or so just trying to climb back into the fight. Then we had pretty good pace there to try and maybe challenge for a better finishing spot, but we did the best we could and finished on the lead lap. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I would love to come back and have another crack at it.”
Jordan Love, Driver – No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: “It was my first IMSA race and first time racing in the U.S. It was good fun – sharing a car with Kenny and Chaz is always good fun – but it probably wasn’t the weekend we wanted or expected. We started off kind of on the back foot and missed practice one, and it was a new track for Chaz and I. We were kind of chasing our tails in the race until the last two hours, and then we came back for a lead lap finish. I really enjoyed sharing the car with these two, and hopefully we can do it again soon.”
