Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. Sorry, it’s still Mosport to most of us.
OK, who is on the entry this time? It is the PC class missing out this time, as the scheduling gods called upon P, GTLM and GTD to make the trek into Canada at what has proven to be one of, if not the fastest track on the schedule.
First off, the BOP lottery fell the way of the Ford powered cars, as they receive a restrictor break this time out. They haven’t been showing the earlier season pace we’d seen out of them, so they’re the recipient of what is now apparently an every event occurrence.
In GTD, it was the BMW (also known as Turner) getting a weight penalty after winning at Watkins Glen, in what has been a pretty consistently balanced class.
For the former Grand Am entrants, this will be the first time many of the competitors have seen track, as it was a fixture on the ALMS calendar, year in, year out. Since being bought from Don Panoz, Mosport has seen many upgrades, thanks to a new local ownership group. The group, with Ron Fellows as the out front ring leader, is bringing what was considered a quaint and behind the times facility into the modern era.
Many drivers have considered this one of their favorite tracks in the world – the high speed corners are a challenge to all and are not to be taken casually. Also a high point on making the visit to the facility is the chance to compete in front of likely the most knowledgeable and passionate fans anywhere in the world.
So, on to the race… Being a momentum track, much like Laguna, the P2 cars may be competitive here, but if it comes down to a late race restart, consider it game over. Race in, race out, we’ve seen the P2 cars swamped on restarts and in traffic situations. Consider that a part of the game for now.
In the P2 ranks, it is status quo as far as entrants, except that OAK have Olivier Pla and Gustavo Yacaman ready to go this time.
Among the DP teams, there simply isn’t much experience at this track. Ganassi tested at the track recently, which will help them to some degree, but expect all of the competitors to get up to speed quickly – a very high speed. With the modern techniques learning tracks via games, simulators and even on line videos, it doesn’t take that much time for teams to get caught up on track inexperience.
As far as GTLM, the teams are all experienced here. Lately the class has been a Corvette show, but BMW and now Viper are close. The performance of the Viper at Watkins Glen makes it appear as if the Bill Riley led team has finally sorted the handling issues they’ve been having.
One team that has struggled in comparison has been Risi – they and their Ferrari have seen highs and lows at this track – is it time for a high for them or has the competitive factories surpassed the capabilities of a small, but talented privateer team?
One of the quirks of the point totals is that the Mags/Garcia Corvette has rattled off 3 straight wins (Long Beach/Laguna/Watkins Glen) but only holds a 9 point lead over the Auberlen/Priaulx BWM, despite the BMW not having won a race thus far. Just like in NASCAR, the points award consistency and make it difficult to pull away much of a lead, but they also make it difficult to catch up quickly.
In the GTD ranks, as previously stated the balance is good between the Ferrari, Porsche, Audi and BWM ranks now, assuming the 30 kg additional weight do not hamper the Turner entry too much.
As well as can be figured out from the convoluted schedule, this race sort of marks the half-way point of the races, but it also places the series into the midst of a very compressed set of events, where kicking off with Watkins Glen it is 4 races in a row, almost all on alternating weeks. We’re nearing the home stretch run for the championships – the summer is just heating up…
