The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship returned to Canadian Tire Motorsports Park – nee Mosport – last year after a COVID hiatus to a warm welcome from the Canadian fans. The series heads back to the the Ontario favorite again this weekend, this time two weeks removed from the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, so the teams will be a bit more rested for the Chevrolet Grand Prix.
CTMP is fast and flowing, and is always a favorite of drivers as well as a great place for fans to watch.
“Mosport is one of the most bizarre and amazing tracks in the world – not only in the IMSA calendar – and my memories have always been very nice there,” says Dutch driver Renger van der Zande, who will be driving with Sebastien Bourdais in the No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R from Chip Ganassi Racing.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1406]
“I think last year was the first time that I won there. But I’ve been trying very hard there. And if you want to win there, you have to try really hard because it’s one of those tracks where I tell (people) how bizarre it is, how fast you go there, how much risk you take, how blind the corners are. Also, the traffic is not easy. Plus, you need a very fast car; if you don’t have a fast car on the back straight, you’re not going to win the race. So the whole package needs to fit. It’s actually one of those tracks where it’s more interesting from an engineering perspective than you think when you look at it.”
Last year’s event featured a couple of standout performances. The first was Tom Blomqvist’s stunning pole lap in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura of 1m4.394s, an average of 137.472 mph around the 2.459-mile, 10-turn road course. It was not only a new track record, but stands as the fastest official lap of any WeatherTech Championship track. The second was in the race itself, when Bourdais handed van der Zande an “undriveable” car and he drove it right to the front of the field.
“Sebastien came in after one stint when the power steering was locking,” van der Zande said. “He said, ‘Hey, I don’t want to drive anymore.’ And I I just gave it a go and I said let’s try anyway. At that point, I started using some some strength that I’d never never known before. We made it through to the end and I even had a shot at finding finding my way past some cars, which was quite bizarre, to be honest.”
CTMP’s signature turn is Moss Corner, which is really two closely-spaced 90-degree turns. Coming into the corner, the cars go through a dip that can unsettle them, making it a dramatic spot but also a good place to pass coming off the fast and tricky Turn 3. But for many of the drivers, the favorite section comes before that.
“I’d say the the best part about is probably the flow between Turns 1 and 2,” said Jordan Taylor, who looking for the first victory of the season for Corvette Racing in the No. 3 C8.R he shares with Antonio Garcia.
“That’s an amazing sequence of corners – blind entries on both of them, lots of elevation change. And I think just the fans in general at Mosport are always something special. I went out in 2017 or ’18 to Turn 3 and Turn 4 to watch and just the fans and the guys that camp, they just love sports car racing. So as a sports car driver, not all the tracks have authentic fans like that. It’s always cool to see guys that have been going there since back in the day.”
Taylor and Garcia will be trying to close a 172-point gap from their third-place position in the GTD PRO points to leaders Ben Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth for Vasser Sullivan Lexus. Jules Gounon and Daniel Juncadella (WeatherTech Racing Mercedes AMG) sit in between, 113 points out of first. Paul Miller Racing’s Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow carry a 104-point margin in the GTD points into CTMP over Aaron Telitz and Frankie Montecalvo (Vasser Sullivan Lexus), with Heart of Racing Aston Martin duo Marco Sorensen and Roman De Angelis hot on the second-place team’s heels.
With the penalty for the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsports squad from Watkins Glen upheld, Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims hold the GTP lead for Cadillac Racing/Action Express Racing, 64 points ahead of Glen winners Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly (BMW M Team RLL). PPM drivers Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy fell to third, only nine points behind the BMW squad. Having won the only two LMP3 points-paying races so far, Felipe Fraga and Gar Robinson hold a pretty stout lead for Riley Motorsports, 730 points to Anthony Mantella and Wayne Boyd. LMP2 isn’t in action this weekend.
The 2h40m Chevrolet Grand Prix begins at noon ET with live coverage on NBC. Qualifying will be Saturday afternoon at 12:45pm ET, streamed live on IMSA.tv. Accompanying the WeatherTech Championships will be the Michelin Pilot Challenge with a two-hour race on Saturday afternoon at 4 ET and a pair of VP Racing SportsCar Challenge events. The support races will be streamed live on Peacock.