INDIANAPOLIS — Hunter McElrea is adjusting to sports car racing, but he knows the road course at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and he proved it on Sunday.
McElrea teamed with Mikkel Jensen and Steven Thomas to give TDS Racing back-to-back LMP2 victories in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition in the 6-hour Battle on The Bricks at IMS.
A graduate of the IndyCar Series ladder system, McElrea had turned plenty of laps at the Indy road course and won an Indy NXT race there.
“I love this place. It’s kind of like my home track in America,” said McElrea. “I live in Carmel during the year, so I have a lot of experience in the Road to Indy stuff, and it took me so long. I got second eight times and it was really annoying, and I won last year Indy Lights and I was joking it would be cool to go back-to-back because obviously they won it last year as well.
“It’s cool. I was hopeful. I felt like we would be quick here. But, honestly, without sounding cocky, we’ve been literally fast everywhere. And we kind of felt robbed at Sebring, like we did — everybody did an amazing job, and it was a bit of a lottery with how the yellow fell.”
The No. 11 finished a whopping 26.049 seconds ahead of the runner-up Mathiasen Motorsports machine shared by Nick Boulle, Tom Dillman and Jakub Smiechowski despite having lost a lap earlier in the race.
McElrea, who made one NTT IndyCar Series start for Dale Coyne Racing earlier this year, explained the circumstances of losing a lap.
“Some weird stuff sometimes happens on like the long yellows, full course yellows, and the pass around was not happening. And I was getting passed by cars, and I was super confused,” McElrea said. “So I was kind of whining about that, like what’s going on. And then I got the drive through and then spun by a GT, like the same time, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m probably a lap down last.’ And then next thing you know, at the end of the stint I’m leading by 10 seconds.”
McElrea joined the team this year to run the endurance races.
“It was nice. Steven has given me an opportunity to where I’ve had a lot of testing, so I don’t necessarily feel like I’m unprepared when I come to the race,” the 24-year-old driver said. “But I’ve never driven any track on a schedule apart from here until now, obviously, right.
Like before the year, I had only driven here on the whole schedule. So it’s been a lot of learning. Road Atlanta, I’ve never driven, so it’s going to be another learning for a little bit.”
McElrea was rideless at the end of last season when Thomas reached out to him.
“I don’t know. I had no idea I was going to be racing sports cars, really, last year at this time,” he said. “But I literally had nothing. Like I had no drive at all.And he sent me an Instagram DM and said, ‘Do you want to drive for us?’
“I had never met this guy. I was like, ‘Is this guy pranking me?’”