The #60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Acura ARX-06 of Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun survived multiple late-race cautions to win the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park after a bold strategic gamble in the second half of the race.
Provisionally, it’s the second win of the season for Blomqvist and Braun – and one that, pending post-race technical checks, stands as an unencumbered victory after the data manipulation scandal which burst from out of nowhere after their win in the 24 Hours of Daytona.
Pole sitter Blomqvist set the tempo early from the front row alongside the #10 Konica Minolta Acura of Ricky Taylor who started alongside him. Both of the Acuras were particularly quick around the circuit formerly known as Mosport from the first practice session of the weekend.
The racing was relatively clean through the first hour as both leaders made their first routine pit stops and changed drivers. Braun got aboard the white and pink #60 Acura and retained the lead, ahead of Filipe Albuquerque in the black and blue #10.
Just as the race was crossing over the half-time mark, the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Jules Gounon and the #23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Ross Gunn were fighting for position in GTD Pro. Gounon oversteered through the apex of turn eight and made contact with Gunn, which sent the Aston Martin spinning off and into the tyre barriers. A winded Gunn was able to get out of his wrecked car unhurt, as the Safety Car came out for the first time.
The leaders in the GTP class came into the pits. Albuquerque came out with the lead followed by the #31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series.R of Alexander Sims. Braun dropped down to third in the order – but this was the last time that Meyer Shank Racing brought its car into the pits.
LMP3 rookie George Staikos had a spin out of turn ten and couldn’t get his #4 Ave Motorsports Ligier JS P320 facing the right way. In advance of another full-course caution, Albuquerque brought the #10 into the pits just before the Safety Car was deployed again with less than an hour to go. Sims had to abort a pit stop while on pit lane, because he wasn’t sure if he’d come into the pits before the yellow flag. This would cost him and Pipo Derani valuable track position after the caution ended.
Albuquerque and the Wayne Taylor Racing/Andretti Autosport crew looked nailed on for the victory assuming that Braun would have to stop again, but MSR was content to keep rolling the dice in case the cautions kept rolling in. As it happened, there was another clash between GTD cars – this time at Moss Corner, where the #96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 of Robby Foley hit the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Aaron Telitz. Telitz spun around but was able to continue, but Foley came to a stop off course with a busted front left suspension, requiring another Safety Car.
The final restart with 24 minutes to go saw Braun pull away from Albuquerque but with questions if he’d make it to the chequered flag before the energy tank ran dry.
But the race would end with a fourth Safety Car after a frightening crash for Renger van der Zande in the #01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R. Van der Zande was trying to pass the #24 BMW M Team RLL Hybrid V8 of Augusto Farfus to avoid finishing last in class, but Van der Zande was eased into the grass approaching turn eight and then went spearing head-on into the tyre barriers at high speed.
Thankfully, Van der Zande walked away from his second big crash in the last two months, another curse-seeming moment for the gold and black Cadillac crew. This was the #24 BMW’s second notable incident of the race – after Philipp Eng nearly collided with a course vehicle under the first Safety Car, ran wide into the gravel at Moss Corner – and was given a drive-through penalty for “unjustifiable risk.”
At any rate, those four caution flags over the final 78 minutes were what Braun and Blomqvist needed to hang on and secure the win, which makes Braun the second-most successful driver at CTMP with his sixth win across all classes. This is his second overall win after he and Jon Bennett won the 2018 race in an Oreca 07 LMP2 – Braun and Bennett also won in LMP3 last year.
Asked why he loves racing at Mosport so much, Braun said: “I love a fast corner and it’s always been a place that’s clicked for me. I’ve just always loved this place and it’s got a great rhythm to it. When you kind of get that confidence that it’s going well, you can go out and attack straight away, and when it works, it keeps the confidence high.”
“The Acura cars have been fast all week, and our team specifically worked hard. Those yellows played into our favour and I still had a bit of fuel to save, but I knew if I could get a good jump and kind of push hard and build a gap for a lap or two, I could settle in and hit the fuel number. It was a lot of fun.”
“The racing gods were looking down on us a little bit today,” added Blomqvist. “We rolled the dice to try and go long, and the only way we were going to win that race was if the yellows kind of played into our corner. Thankfully, they did.”
Blomqvist was pleased to pay back the hard work of the MSR crew to help salvage what has been a lost season for the reigning IMSA premier class champions. “They’ve worked their back sides off all year long, really. This car has been a lot of work. We haven’t had the greatest run of recent races, so to get the pole yesterday and finish the job off today is just amazing.”
Just like at Daytona, it was an Acura 1-2 finish with the #10 WTR/Andretti Acura of Taylor and Albuquerque finishing in second place. After three retirements in the last four rounds, Taylor was just pleased to arrest the team’s freefall, saying: “Before the race, the theme of the weekend was we need to put together a weekend like we are used to and just get back to normal.
“It just so happened the #31 had a bad day and the points came together. We’re happy about that, and happy to get back on a roll of positive momentum. We’ll take a second place to the sister (Acura) car very happily and try to build on that for Road America.”
This runner-up finish puts Taylor and Albuquerque third in the GTP standings, just 29 points behind Derani and Sims who came away with seventh place in class.
It was also a great outcome for the third-placed #25 BMW of Nick Yelloly and Connor De Phillippi. Like the Meyer Shank Racing team, the #25 BMW M Team RLL crew stayed out during the many caution periods to gain track position – and just like the MSR crew, that strategic bravery was rewarded with their third podium of the season.
While they’ve not always had the quickest car this season, Yelloly and De Phillippi’s consistency means they are now just ten points out of the championship lead with three races left for the GTP class this season.
In just their third race with the Porsche 963, JDC Miller Motorsports, Tijmen van der Helm, and Mike Rockenfeller came away with another fourth-place finish – and this time, the #5 “Banana Boat” got the better of its factory-run bretheren from the Porsche Penske Motorsports team.
Van der Helm in the final minutes had both the #6 of Nick Tandy and the #7 of Matt Campbell bearing down on him for fourth place, but the 19-year-old Dutchman – overlooked in single-seaters and just three races into his top-flight racing career in prototypes – held them both off.
Porsche would lock out fourth through sixth places, all in numerical order – with the #5 ahead of the #6 of Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet, and the #7 of Campbell and Felipe Nasr.
The #24 BMW of Farfus and Eng was given a post-race time penalty for the collision with the #01 Cadillac but it did not impact the final classification – the BMW was eighth, and the gold Caddy was classified ninth, behind the championship-leading #31 car of Derani and Sims.
GTP won’t be in action the next time the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship is in action – the upcoming Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park is a GT-only event – so the next time this class will be in action is on 6 August at Road America.
LMP3 served up a fiery and contentious finish at the end. The #74 Riley Ligier JS P320 of Gar Robinson and Felipe Fraga took their third class win in a row and extended their championship lead, but it didn’t come without controversy after Fraga divebombed past the #30 Jr III Racing Ligier of Ari Balogh and Garett Grist with less than seven minutes to go.
Robinson kept it clean from the start of the race, and Fraga continued to build the #74 Riley Ligier’s advantage. That advantage disappeared after the first Safety Car restart, when Grist – a native of the province of Ontario – passed Fraga and took the lead.
Fraga didn’t let Grist get away, however, and with six minutes and 42 seconds left, both LMP3 leaders caught GTD traffic in front of them heading into turn ten. Fraga lunged all the way to the inside, bumped wheels with Grist, and drove through to the lead as Grist ran through the grass.
IMSA Stewards reviewed the incident and saw no evidence of foul play – Fraga would go on to keep the win, the first at CTMP for him and Robinson.
“Today, I think they were a little bit faster than us, especially in the straights,” said Fraga. “In the GT traffic, I basically caught him (Grist) in two or three seconds in two laps. Then I just had a gap, like he opened into the last corner and I think he didn’t expect me to try in the last corner, and I did it.”
“I tried to pass him inside and he just turned in me and we had big contact again like in Watkins. I think that’s what happens when you fight really hard for the win in IMSA.”
Grist, who came out on the wrong end of another late-race pass for the win by Fraga, wasn’t as pleased. “It’s pretty clear what happened so there’s really not much to say, I guess.”
“I mean, Watkins Glen I raced clean, here I raced clean,” he continued. “I guess we know how we can race, though. Three rounds left.”
Anthony Mantella and Wayne Boyd finished third for local team AWA in their green #17 Duquiene D08. Robinson and Fraga lead the LMP3 standings by 181 points over Mantella and Boyd with three races remaining. Grist, leading the charge for Jr III Racing, is a further six points back.
Corvette Racing completed an almost perfect day of racing across two sides of the Atlantic on Sunday. Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor wouldn’t have had the chance to see their European-based crew clinch the World Endurance Championship title at Monza due to the half-hour clash between the start in Canada and the finish in Italy.
But as if they had an intuition to do something special today, Garcia and Taylor went out and took the GTD Pro class win in the #3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD – which was their first win in the series since the 2022 12 Hours of Sebring, nearly 16 months and 14 races ago.
Garcia took over after a brief 33-minute opening stint from Taylor, while the pole-winning #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus of Jack Hawksworth led early on.
The race turned after Gunn and Gounon’s battle for third ended with the crash that brought out the first Safety Car. After pit stops under the yellow flag, Ben Barnicoat got aboard the #14 Lexus, while Garcia restarted third behind Barnicoat and new leader Patrick Pilet in the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R.
Barnicoat tried to get back around Pilet but both cars went through the grass, allowing Garcia to swoop past them both to take the class lead. That off-track excursion proved disastrous for the #14 Lexus, which had a streak of five straight podium finishes come to an abrupt end when Barnicoat brought the car behind the wall due to overheating. Hawksworth and Barnicoat finished 21 laps down but still came away fourth in class.
That decisive moment of the race ensured Corvette Racing of its first win in over a year, and first win at Mosport in 2014 – adding to a record 12 wins in IMSA competition in Canada.
“On the restart, I knew the Porsche was the only one that gambled on the strategy and jumped us,” Garcia said about the race-winning pass. “I was kind of a front-row spectator into turn one when the 9 and 14 went side-by-side, which I think never works here. Once I saw that, I was alert and went for it to make the move for the lead.”
“It’s really nice to get a Corvette back in victory lane back here at CTMP,” said Taylor after his brief run. “We’ve struggled here and there, but I feel like we executed very well at a lot of the races and the results haven’t been there. We’ve had a lot of podiums here and there so it’s nice for everything to click and go our way.”
“It was a very good day. I don’t think it could have gone much better,” he added, after following up the championship-clinching result from Ben Keating, Nico Varrone, and Nick Catsburg over in Monza with the win in CTMP.
Pilet and Klaus Bachler would finish second for Toronto’s own Pfaff Motorsports, while Gounon and Daniel Juncadella came home third in the #79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes – after Gounon served a drive-through penalty for the collision with Gunn.
Hawksworth and Barnicoat will still head to Lime Rock Park with a healthy lead in the GTD Pro standings, but the advantage was trimmed to just 96 points over Juncadella and Gounon, and 109 points over Garcia and Taylor.
The final Safety Car spoiled what could have been a grandstand finish in GTD between Paul Miller Racing and Inception Racing.
But after taking the lead early on, Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow, and the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW held off the #70 McLaren 720S GT3 EVO of Brendan Iribe and Frederik Schandorff to take PMR’s third win of the season.
This time out it was a fairly straightforward drive to victory, once Snow overtook polesitter and Canadian hero Roman de Angelis for the top spot in the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin in the opening ten minutes of the race.
Sellers took over and held off Schandorff all the way until the yellow and chequered flags.
“Madison drove a great stint at the beginning,” Sellers said. “The best part is, you really love going out there and mixing it up. They keep you on your toes the whole time.”
He expressed his lament over the muted finish. “I thought it was going to get tough in the last few laps. The yellow helped us, again, but I would have loved to battle it out with them.”
Iribe and Schandorff finished a season-best second place in GTD, ahead of Mike Skeen and Mikaël Grenier in the #32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes. De Angelis and Marcø Sorensen would finish fourth in the end, ahead of the #97 Turner Motorsport BMW (Bill Auberlen/Chandler Hull).
Despite Telitz being spun out after being hit by Foley, the #12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus of Telitz and Frankie Montecalvo went on to finish sixth – after starting the race from the back of the field due to an unapproved engine change before the race.
Gradient Racing and ace driver Katherine Legge were leading GTD until a rear brake issue on the #66 Acura NSX GT3 forced them behind the wall. Legge and Sheena Monk’s great opportunity went unfulfilled as they finished 11th in class, behind the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes (Russell Ward/Philip Ellis) which had a late puncture rob them of a podium finish.
Images courtesy of IMSA
