Niederhauser battles Van der Linde in the opening hour of the Indy 8H

Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO

Patric Niederhauser fended off an attack from Sheldon van der Linde in the first hour of the Indianapolis 8 Hour powered by AWS, in which Dan Harper fought his way into the top ten from the back of the grid.

Niederhauser's No. 10 Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R started the race from pole position and maintained the lead, while Van der Linde's No. 31 BMW M4 GT3 moved from fourth to second at the start.

The South African remained within striking distance of the Porsche and initially took the lead in Turn 1 after 30 minutes when Niederhauser was held up in traffic.

However, one lap later, Niederhauser regained first place with an almost identical maneuver and opened up a lead of over a second towards the end of the first hour, in which the first safety car of the race took place.

The trigger was when Elias Sabo's No. 8 Flying Lizard Motorsports BMW stalled in the Turn 4 gravel trap after contact with SunEnergy1 Racing's Kenny Habul.

Niederhauser was the only driver not to pit under the safety car and retained the lead over the No. 31 BMW, which was now in the hands of Charles Weerts.

Jules Gounon took third place in the #130 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo ahead of the #99 Random Vandals Racing BMW driven by Connor De Phillippi.

Zach Veach rounded out the top five for Racers Edge Motorsports ahead of the No. 33 BMW of Team WRT driven by Augusto Farfus.

Farfus' co-driver Dan Harper made rapid progress in the first hour after starting from the back following an engine change following qualifying.

The BMW works driver made it into the top ten after ten minutes before working his way up to seventh place before the safety car showed up.

Completing the top ten were Varun Choksey, Alec Udell, Jake Pedersen and Samantha Tan.

Remarkably in the battle for the drivers' championship in the Intercontinental GT Challenge, the GMG Racing Porsche No. 32 came into the pits after 21 minutes with a puncture and is now two laps behind.

Ayhancan Guven, who is part of GMG's Pro-Am squad, leads the table ahead of Team WRT's Weerts.

Davey Euwema is the European editor of Sportscar365. Euwema, based in the Netherlands, covers, among others, the FIA World Endurance Championship, the European Le Mans Series and the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS.