Going a bit off strategy, plus some misfortune for competitors, allowed Corvette Racing with Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia to claim their first GTD PRO victory of the season in the No. 3 C8.R at the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. Brian Sellers and Madison Snow, meanwhile, claimed their third GTD victory of the season for Paul Miller Racing in the sixth round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Taylor brought the Corvette into the pits for the first time only 33 minutes into the race – far earlier than necessary, but far enough in that they could likely make it to the end with one more stop – and handed the car over to Garcia. Meanwhile, local favorite Pfaff Motorsports went for an opposite strategy, pitting as late as possible — the differing strategies actually coming together at the end of the race.
Without some misfortune for the frontrunners, though, Corvette Racing would have had a tougher time taking the win. The first GTD PRO competitor to fall brought out the race’s first full-course caution halfway into the race. Contact between Ross Gunn in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin and Jules Gounon in the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes AMG in Turn 8 sent Gunn’s Aston hard into the tire wall. Gunn was evaluated by the medical team and released; the No. 79 had to serve a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.
The second incident occurred on the penultimate restart with a little more than an hour in the 2h40m contest left with Patrick Pilet leading in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R. Ben Barnicoat in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus attacked for the front, but ran out of room and went off track; Garcia seized the moment to pass them both and take the lead.
“On the restart, I knew that the Porsche was the only one that gambled on a different strategy, jumped us, and I was kind of first-row spectator into Turn 1 watching them going side by side, which I think never works here,” said Garcia. “Once I saw that, I was kind of alert and going for it and made the move, went into the lead. Then I think we had strong pace, especially on the front.”
Meanwhile, Barnicoat took the Lexus to the pits with a leak in the cooling system, the car eventually going behind the wall and ending an 11-race podium streak for him and Jack Hawksworth. However, with Gunn out, the No. 14 squad still collected fourth-place points.
Garcia was able to hold off Pilet to the end, the Corvette Racing team collecting their first victory since Sebring last season, with Pfaff’s Pilet and Klaus Bachler second followed by Gounon and Daniel Juncadella in third.
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“We’ve definitely struggled here and there,” said Taylor. “But I felt like we’ve been executing very well in a lot of the races and the results just haven’t been there. We’ve had a lot of podiums here and there, but it’s nice to for everything to click and go our way. The guys called great strategy to kind of undercut everyone at the beginning, jumped up a couple spots into second and Antonio had a great restart there to jump into the lead. It was kind of stressful to watch, being mixed in with the GTD cars, but he stayed out of trouble and I think we had a pretty quick car in clean air. It’s nice to get a Corvette back into victory lane.”
Snow and Sellers were aided by some misfortune for a close competitor as well. The No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus of Frankie Montecalvo and Aaron Telitz qualified second but had to have an engine change after morning warmup and thus started at the back. In addition, because they missed the installation lap, the No. 12 had to start from pit lane and serve a drive-through penalty and were never a factor.
That left only polesitter Roman De Angelis in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage for Snow to deal with at the start.
“After qualifying yesterday, I knew it was gonna be tough,” Snow said. “We got fortunate with the Lexus with their engine change and starting at the back, so I just had Roman to fight with. There were two GTD PRO cars I had to deal with, but once they were out of the way, and it was just Roman, Roman and I raced hard for a couple of laps and then I ended up getting him around the outside of (Turn) 8. It shows in this field that you can’t do that with everybody that’s out there on the track with you. Roman’s one of them that you definitely can, so he’s a great person to race with.”
From there it was relatively smooth sailing for Snow and Sellers, although Sellers had a hard-charging Frederik Schandorff in the No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren catching him in the closing stages. The final full-course caution with only five minutes left put play to any challenge, and Schandorff and Brendan Iribe finished second. Mike Skeen and Mikael Grenier were third in the No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes AMG.
Gradient Racing suffered a heartbreak while in a good position for Katherine Legge and Sheena Monk to score a good placing, or even a victory, in the No. 66 Acura NSX GT3 Evo22. Having pitted right before the short yellow with 57m left, Legge would be able to make it to the end while the rest of the GTD cars in front of them would have had to pit without another long yellow. A short time later, Legge was back in the pits with a brake issue, the screw that holds the pads in the left-rear caliper backing out. The Acura was repaired and continued, seven laps down.
Barnicoat and Hawksworth hold the GTD PRO points lead at 2110, 96 points ahead of Gounon and Juncadella, with Garcia and Taylor another 13 points back. Sellers and Snow extended their GTD points lead, now at 212 over De Angelis and Marco Sorensen. Telitz and Montecalvo are another seven points back in third, with Shandorff and Iribe moving into fourth.
The GTD PRO and GTD cars get their own race next, with a GT-only contest at Lime Rock Park in two weeks.