2014 Brickyard Grand Prix

The 2014 Brickyard Grand Prix was a sports car race sanctioned by the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) held on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana on July 25, 2014. The event served as the ninth of thirteen scheduled rounds of the 2014 United SportsCar Championship.

International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) president Scott Atherton confirmed that the race was part of the 2014 United SportsCar Championship schedule in October 2013.^[1] It was the first year the event was held as part of the Tudor United SportsCar Championship. The 2014 Brickyard Grand Prix was the ninth of thirteen scheduled sports car races of 2014 by IMSA, and it was the sixth round not held as part of the North American Endurance Cup.^[1] The event was held at the fourteen-turn 2.439 mi (3.925 km) Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana on July 25, 2014.^[1]

Before the race, Jordan Taylor and Ricky Taylor led the Prototype Drivers' Championship with 218 points, 5 points clear of João Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi in second, and Gustavo Yacamán with 208 points.^[2] With 169 points, PC was led by Jon Bennett and Colin Braun with a seventeen-point advantage over Renger van der Zande.^[2] In GTLM, the Drivers' Championship was led by Antonio García and Jan Magnussen with 190 points; the duo held a nineteen-point gap over Bill Auberlen and Andy Priaulx.^[2] Bill Sweedler and Townsend Bell led the GTD Drivers' Championship with 164 points, 3 points ahead of Andy Lally and John Potter.^[2] Chevrolet and Ferrari were leading their respective Manufacturers' Championships, while Wayne Taylor Racing, CORE Autosport, Corvette Racing, and AIM Autosport were their respective Teams' Championships.^[2]

Forty-nine cars were officially entered for the Brickyard Grand Prix, with the bulk of entries in the Prototype (P) and Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) classes.^[3] Action Express Racing (AER), Marsh Racing, VisitFlorida Racing (VFR) and Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) entered one Chevrolet Corvette DP. Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) and Michael Shank Racing (MSR) entered one Ford-powered Riley MkXXVI. Speedsource had two Lola B12/80 while Extreme Speed Motorsports (ESM) entered two HPD ARX-03b cars and OAK Racing entered one Morgan LMP2 chassis with Nissan VK45DE 4.5 L V8 engine.^[4] The DeltaWing car withdrew from the event due to damage.^[3] The Prototype Challenge (PC) class was composed of ten Oreca FLM09 cars: two from Starworks Motorsport and RSR Racing. BAR1 Motorsports, CORE Autosport, JDC-Miller MotorSports, Performance Tech, PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports, and 8Star Motorsports entered one car each.^[5] GTLM was represented by ten entries from five different brands.^[3] In the list of GTD entrants, eighteen GT-specification vehicles were represented by six different manufacturers.^[3]

There were two practice sessions preceding the start of the race on Friday, both on Thursday. The first session on Thursday morning lasted 90 minutes while the second on Thursday afternoon lasted an hour.^[6]

Thursday afternoon's 80-minute four-group qualifying session gave 15-minute sessions to all categories. Cars in GTD were sent out first before those grouped in GTLM, PC, and Prototype had three separate identically timed sessions. Regulations stipulated teams to nominate one qualifying driver, with the fastest laps determining each classes starting order. IMSA would arranged the grid to put all Prototypes ahead of the PC, GTLM, and GTD cars.^[6]

Pole positions in each class are indicated in bold and by ‡. P stands for Prototype, PC (Prototype Challenge), GTLM (Grand Touring Le Mans) and GTD (Grand Touring Daytona).

Class winners are denoted in bold and ‡. P stands for Prototype, PC (Prototype Challenge), GTLM (Grand Touring Le Mans) and GTD (Grand Touring Daytona).