BMW’s Late Indy Pass Leaves Cadillac in Title Control

Sheldon van der Linde passed Earl Bamber with 5 minutes 30 seconds left and won the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks for BMW M Team WRT. The No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 beat the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac by 2.926 seconds after 112 laps on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s 2.439-mile road course.

It was WRT’s first IMSA victory in its first season running BMW’s factory GTP cars. Jack Aitken, Bamber’s co-driver, still left Indiana with a 147-point lead in the driver standings, and Cadillac can wrap the manufacturer title by starting a car at Petit Le Mans on October 3.

Van der Linde Completes the Pass in Turn 12

The winning move came in traffic at Turn 12, after van der Linde had already tried the outside of Bamber at Turn 7 and failed to complete the pass. He went all the way to the inside so Bamber could not see him, then pulled 2.3 seconds clear with under two minutes left. Dries Vanthoor had started the car and handed it over in the hunt; van der Linde finished the job.

Bamber was racing with Aitken’s title on the line. Van der Linde was racing with nothing to protect. That gap in risk, more than a tenth of a second, decided the next-to-last round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

As soon as I got into the lead I got goosebumps with three laps to go, which isn’t ideal. We’ve waited so freaking long for this. I even hurt my ribs celebrating getting out of the car. It’s incredible.

Sheldon van der Linde, BMW M Team WRT driver, after the race

He also said he was willing to risk everything for the win, and that Bamber never saw the dive. The official series account posted the last-minute fight between the Cadillac and the BMW.

What an INCREDIBLE last minute battle for the win between Earl Bamber in the Whelen Cadillac and Sheldon van der Linde in the Team WRT BMW!

Awesome racing at Indianapolis for the TireRack .com Battle on the Bricks.

Next Up: Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta… pic.twitter.com/3dSSA52rt4

— IMSA (@IMSA) September 20, 2026

Laurin Heinrich brought the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 home third with Kevin Estre, 5.202 seconds behind the winner after a late charge. Heinrich had been drafted into that car for the weekend in place of Laurens Vanthoor. Tom Blomqvist started from pole in the No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 in 1:14.674, then finished fifth with Colin Braun.

GTP FINISH AT INDIANAPOLIS

Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque were sixth in the sister No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac. The second WRT BMW, the No. 25 of Philipp Eng and Marco Wittmann, finished 10th, one lap down, after going off with the Aston Martin Valkyrie at Turn 7.

Cadillac Still Leaves With a 147-Point Lead

Had Bamber held the lead to the flag, Aitken would have all but locked the GTP drivers’ title on the spot. Second place still grew the cushion. Aitken came in with a 118-point lead over Heinrich, who has raced for two teams and three cars this season, and left with 147 points in hand heading to the 10-hour finale.

“I don’t envy Earl for trying to hold them off for as long as he did at the end, but it’s a fantastic result,” Aitken said. “It takes us to Petit in a very strong position.”

Bamber said the first job was the manufacturers’ championship, then the teams’ title, and that a dicey fight with the No. 24 still counted as a good day if they could not finish first.

We work really hard and goal number one was to try and clinch the manufacturers championship for Cadillac, and we are close to that. And then the team’s championship. So overall, it’s a good day. We just need to start in Petit.

Earl Bamber, Cadillac Whelen driver, after the race

POINTS AFTER INDIANAPOLIS

• Drivers’ lead: Aitken now sits 147 points clear of Heinrich with one race left.
• Lead before the race: That gap was 118 points when the cars arrived at the Brickyard.
• Manufacturer, pre-race: Cadillac led Porsche 2,562 to 2,450, a 112-point edge in GTP.
• Manufacturer, post-race: Cadillac’s lead is 136 points, and the title clinches if one Cadillac starts at Road Atlanta.

The three-day weekend drew 54,000 fans. They got a sprint that looked like a title fight for five minutes and a season that, in GTP, barely moved.

WRT’s First IMSA Win Comes After the Factory Switch

BMW M Motorsport hired the Belgian squad to take over BMW’s IMSA GTP operation from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing for 2026, ending a 17-year RLL partnership. Team principal Vincent Vosse called it a great challenge and said WRT had never run a full IMSA season, only GT cars at the Rolex 24. The team set up a Charlotte base for the American cars.

The same M Hybrid V8 already won for WRT in the FIA World Endurance Championship at Spa-Francorchamps, a 1-2, and again at Sao Paulo. Sunday made three wins this season across the two series. BMW’s last GTP win in IMSA had been at Road America in 2025, with Vanthoor in an RLL car, and the marque’s previous overall win at Indy came in 2024 under RLL.

Van der Linde’s previous IMSA class win was in GTD in 2017. This was his second class victory in the series. He praised Vanthoor’s stint and said they had been close many times. Head of BMW M Motorsport Andreas Roos had framed the switch as a way to focus the Hypercar program on one operator; the Indy result is the first IMSA payoff of that bet.

BMW M TEAM WRT MAKES HISTORY WITH MAIDEN IMSA VICTORY 🏆

Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde claimed a monumental victory at the https://t.co/rxhttGq44j Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, securing BMW M Team WRT’s maiden IMSA win. pic.twitter.com/0ZFaczbluU

— WRT – W Racing Team (@followWRT) September 21, 2026

WRT’s own account called it a maiden IMSA victory for Vanthoor and van der Linde. The sister No. 25 never factored after the off-course moment with the Valkyrie, so the breakthrough sat on one car.

A Turn 1 Crash Scrambles the Opening Lap

The race green flag at 3:10 p.m. ET opened a two-hour, 40-minute sprint, the only standard-length race of the 2026 WeatherTech season with all four classes. IMSA had previewed a field of 44 at Indianapolis on the 14-turn road course, with two or three stops expected and little room to recover from a bad start.

Trouble started immediately. Vanthoor got under Estre’s No. 6 Porsche in Turn 1; Estre then hit Julien Andlauer’s No. 7 Penske Porsche and set off a pileup that also collected AO Racing’s No. 99 LMP2 car of PJ Hyett. Andlauer needed heavy repairs to the floor, side pod and toe-link. Hyett was towed to the garage.

THE RACE CLOCK AT INDIANAPOLIS

1. Green flag: Turn 1 pileup brings the first yellow, with Andlauer and Hyett in the wall of the incident.
2. 2 hours remaining: Aitken passes pole-sitter Blomqvist for the lead in Turn 7 after earlier dusting the right-side wheels in the same corner.
3. 1 hour 23 minutes remaining: Bamber takes over the No. 31; Heinrich is second after a short fill, with van der Linde third.
4. 58 minutes remaining: Caution for rear-bumper damage on Connor De Phillippi’s No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW after contact with Nicky Catsburg’s Corvette.
5. About 50 minutes remaining: Bamber leads the restart, then van der Linde, with Heinrich dropping back on the stop.
6. 5 minutes 30 seconds remaining: Van der Linde dives inside Bamber at Turn 12 and drives off to the win.

Between the last yellow and the pass, Bamber’s lead swung with traffic: 1.6 seconds at 30 minutes left, a bumper-to-bumper moment at 24 minutes, 1.667 seconds at 17 minutes, then six tenths with eight minutes to go. Van der Linde said he was frustrated after the restart because Bamber kept getting a run through Turns 5 and 6 whenever GTs sat in the way. The inside move at Turn 12 was the one Bamber could not cover without throwing the car, and the title, into the wall.

Era, Ford and Turner Win the Other Three Classes

While the prototypes traded the overall win, the other three classes wrote their own late races, and two of them still have championships that will actually be raced at Road Atlanta.

CLASS WINNERS AT THE BRICKYARD

• LMP2, No. 18 Era Motorsport: Nick Boulle and Christian Rasmussen win in a one-off ORECA lineup, Era’s sixth class victory and first since Sebring in March 2024.
• GTD Pro, No. 64 Ford Racing: Dennis Olsen and Ben Barker take the Mustang GT3, ending a drought that dated to Indianapolis a year ago, with Barker’s first IMSA class win in his 19th start.
• GTD, No. 96 Turner Motorsport: Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher win in the BMW M4 GT3 EVO, the team’s 26th class victory and first at Indianapolis, and first since Road America in August 2024.

Rasmussen, a late call-up and an IndyCar regular, clutched and coasted the Era ORECA to the flag. He still held a 27-second lead over Harry Tincknell’s No. 52 Bryan Herta Autosport with PR1/Mathiasen car at the white flag, then coasted home 3 laps down on the GTP winner after 109 laps. United Autosports USA’s Paul Di Resta had led the class earlier. Title contenders Inter Europol Competition, CrowdStrike Racing by APR and AO Racing all finished off the LMP2 podium, so that fight stays open for the finale.

GTD Pro came down to the last lap. Nikita Johnson, the new Indy NXT champion, had short-filled the No. 59 RLL McLaren and led until he had to pit with about 90 seconds left. Olsen then held off Catsburg and Tommy Milner in the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R. Frederic Vervisch’s sister Mustang took a drive-through after spinning De Phillippi, who had entered the weekend 23 points ahead of Catsburg and Milner in the driver standings.

In GTD, Foley held off Philip Ellis in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG, the car that had been sent to the rear of the GTD grid for running its engine during pre-race ceremonies. The win moved Foley and Gallagher to the GTD points lead.

Which Titles Are Still Open at Petit Le Mans?

GTP’s driver race is Aitken’s to lose. A 147-point lead into a 10-hour race is not a lock on paper, but Heinrich would need the Cadillac to vanish and the Porsche to finish at the front. Cadillac’s manufacturer title is even tighter to the vest: one car on the grid at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta on October 3 is enough, on the points Bamber described after the race.

TITLE MATH HEADING TO ROAD ATLANTA

• GTP drivers: Aitken leads Heinrich by 147 points after the No. 31 finished second and the No. 6 finished third.
• GTP manufacturers: Cadillac leads Porsche by 136 points and clinches if a Cadillac starts.
• GTD Pro drivers: Catsburg and Milner take the points lead after second place, with Paul Miller’s BMW damaged and off the class podium.
• GTD and LMP2: Foley and Gallagher now lead GTD; LMP2’s main title cars missed the Indy podium and go to Georgia still in a pack.

The class that still looks like a fight is GTD Pro, where Corvette grabbed the points lead without winning and Ford grabbed the race without the championship lead. LMP2 is a finale in the old sense, because the usual contenders left Indianapolis empty-handed while a one-off Era crew stole the day on fuel.

Petit Le Mans is 10 hours at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta on October 3. Cadillac needs to start. The rest of the paddock still needs to race.