AO Racing’s PJ Hyett and Dane Cameron have driven “Spike the LMP2 Dragon”, the purple #99 ORECA 07-Gibson, to its first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship win at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
Spike won the Chevrolet Grand Prix after the #43 Inter Europol Competition car of Jeremy Clarke and Tom Dillmann crashed out with just a little over 15 minutes left in Sunday afternoon’s sprint race.
Dillmann, who’d taken the lead from Cameron in the final pit stop cycles with an aggressive undercut – then got the caution that he needed to make it to the end on one tank of fuel – locked up into turn three and crashed hard into the tyre barriers.
The Frenchman was awake and alert after the incident, though he was taken back to the circuit medical centre in an ambulance. Further details on his condition will be provided as soon as they come in.
That awful misfortune for Dillmann handed first place back to Cameron and Hyett, who had dominated the race from the opening lap until the last 45 minutes when Cameron lost the lead in the final pit sequence.
The #22 United Autosports USA ORECA (Daniel Goldburg/Tom Blomqvist) finished second behind the safety car, followed by the #74 Riley car (Gar Robinson/Felipe Fraga) in third, the #2 United Autosports USA car (Phil Fayer/Ben Hanley) in fourth, and the #52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports car (Nick Boulle/Benjamin Pedersen) in fifth after a pit-lane penalty for driving away with equipment attached.
The #11 TDS Racing ORECA (Steven Thomas/Hunter McElrea) took the checkered flag third on the road, but was given a post-race time penalty for causing a collision with the #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini GTD car with 33 minutes left. That penalty dropped them to eighth place.
Hyett and Cameron moved to within 78 points of LMP2 points leader Goldburg with just three races remaining for the LMP2 category.
Two full-course yellows in the last half-hour produced two surprise winners in the GT classes.
In GTD PRO, it was the #81 DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3 of Albert Costa and Giacomo Altoe that took its first win of the season, the first since the start of its technical alliance with Risi Competizione.
They last stopped for fuel at exactly half-time, during a Safety Car caused by George Kurtz’s accident in turn three. And the gamble ultimately paid off, parlaying a 51-lap final stint into the first win of the year for Costa and Altoe.
A similar gamble helped give second place to the #4 Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3 of Tommy Milner and Nicky Catsburg, which also stretched its last tank of fuel nearly half of the race to put one of the works Corvette Racing cars on the podium.
AO Racing’s Laurin Heinrich and Klaus Bachler drove ‘Rexy’ the #77 Porsche 911 GT3 R to third place after some aggressive strategy early in the race helped the reigning GTD PRO champions gain track position.
The #3 Pratt Miller Corvette (Antonio Garcia/Alexander Sims) finished fourth in class, followed by local favourites Pfaff Motorsport and the #9 Lamborghini (Andrea Caldarelli/Marco Mapelli). A slow stop at mid-race dropped the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW (Madison Snow/Neil Verhagen) out of podium contention to sixth.
Garcia and Sims still lead the GTD PRO standings, but their lead over Heinrich/Bachler has been cut to 39 points. Costa has closed to within 53 points of the lead after taking the win today.
In GTD, the fuel gamble benefited the #45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Danny Formal and Trent Hindman. After Formal was spun around in a first-lap incident, the silver Lamborghini worked its way through the field and made its last stop just after half-distance.
The #78 Forte Racing Lamborghini (Misha Goikhberg/Mario Farnbacher) would have likely taken the lead in the closing stages, but with 33 minutes left, Farnbacher was hit at turn eight by the #11 TDS Racing ORECA, causing him to shoot off into the tyre barriers from second place.
Hindman held on to take the win, the first of the year for the WTR Lamborghini; GTD championship leaders Russell Ward and Philip Ellis finished second in their #57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 to extend their points lead to 93 points.
The #12 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 (Parker Thompson/Jack Hawksworth) completed the GTD podium, just one position ahead of the #36 DXDT Racing Corvette of Robert Wickens and Alec Udell.
While Wickens missed out on what would have been a popular podium finish at his home track, he and Udell did secure DXDT’s best finish of the season, regardless.
One car, the #79 JDC-Miller MotorSports ORECA (Gerry Kraut/Scott Andrews), did not start the race due to insufficient track time for its drivers this weekend. They suffered an engine failure during Saturday practice.
Up next is the IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America, with all four classes in action on Sunday, 3 August.
Images © Jake Galstad, Brandon Badraoui / IMSA / Lumen
