Two full-course cautions in the final hour allowed Colin Braun in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 to go 76 minutes and 52 laps from the team’s final pit stop to claim victory for he and Tom Blomqvist in the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. It was the team’s second official win of the season, and the team became the first to repeat victory in the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season after their victory in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, for which they were subsequently docked points for manipulating tire data.
“I managed to hand the car over in the lead early on to Colin, but then it kind of went against us a bit,” said Blomqvist. “We lost (position) in the stop – which we didn’t really foresee, so we need to look at that, understand what went went on – which made our life a little bit more difficult.
“We kind of just rolled the dice and said, ‘There’s no point finishing third, we’re not really in the championship. Let’s roll the dice, hope for some yellows.’And that was really the only chance. We were going for the win. And that last yellow really saved us because it just enabled us to basically go almost flat out to the end. So yeah, awesome job by Colin,” he continued.
Blomqvist had already proven the team’s pace by putting the car on pole and leading the first stint as both Acuras pulled away from the rest of the field, Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura pursuing him. But that pace was nearly negated by strategy and a lucky break for the No. 10. Just before the race’s second full-course-caution with 55m left, Filipe Albuquerque brought the No. 10 in for what would be its final stop; if there were no more yellows, most of the rest of the field would have to stop and the WTR crew would be sitting pretty.
“It was a roller coaster in terms of strategy going on,” Albuquerque stated. “So we were lucky, initially, to go to the pits and then right after a yellow came. I didn’t know if this was good or not for us. If everyone pitted, then we were kind of virtually P1. Then the No. 60 car just took a massive risk, which paid out to go to the end. My initial feeling I got from the team was they are on fumes, like they don’t have enough fuel and old tires, so they might struggle. So I just took it easy; I think it was super important to finish somewhere on top.”
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When Robby Foley in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 ran into the back of Aaron Telitz in the No, 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 in Moss Corner and ended up off track with broken suspension, Braun had the opportunity to get into the pits before the third full-course caution came out and the pits closed. However, he drove on past, and the ensuing long yellow allowed the No. 60 to go to the end. A hard crash for the No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, Renger van der Zande going into the tires at Turn 8 after contact with Augusto Farfus in the No. 24 BMW Team RLL M Hybrid V8, with five minutes left sealed the victory.
“I still had a bit bit of fuel save to do, but I pushed pretty hard for the first couple laps (after the final restart),” Braun explained. “I knew if I could get a bit of breathing room then I could hit some of these fuel numbers a bit easier and not have to worry so much about about the 10 coming back in some of the brakes zones where you’re lifting early to save. So once once I got a bit of a gap, I kind of settled in and started hitting that fuel number really well. I was surprised the kind of the number we could hit and the pace we could still go.”
Albuquerque and Taylor ended up second for an Acura one-two. The No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 of Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly gambled with a different strategy early, coming in after less than 20 minutes to top off the energy, and the team came away with a third-place finish, BMW M Team RLL’s 100th podium, to create a virtual tie at the top of the points with Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims. Derani and Sims’ No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac finished seventh after an extra trip through the pits when they didn’t make it into pit lane before it was closed for a full-course caution.
Sims and Derani still lead the points with 1872. De Phillippi and Yelloly are only 10 behind, and Albuquerque and Taylor were propelled back into the championship fight, sitting at third with 1843, 34 points ahead of Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy.
The surprise of the race in GTP was Mike Rockenfeller and Tijmen van der Helm finishing fourth in the No. 5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963, the highest placing Porsche. The No. 5 made its first stop earlier than most of the other GTP cars, and hit its third stop with perfect timing, just before the race’s third full-course caution.
LMP3 turned into a battle between a driver with immense local knowledge and the team that has now won every LMP3 points race this season. Felipe Fraga, after taking over the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier from polesitter Gar Robinson, was leading on the penultimate restart. But Ontario native Garret Grist in the No. 30 Jr III Racing Ligier he shared with Ari Balogh was coming hard. Grist took the lead from Fraga shortly after the restart.
However, Grist lost any advantage he had with some unlucky breaks in traffic, and with less than 10 minutes to go, Fraga attacked, going inside Grist in the final turn. Running side-by-side through the turn, Grist had no room at the exit and went off course, Fraga sailing by while Grist recovered. The incident was reviewed by officials, but no action was taken.
“It was a crazy race,” said Fraga. “Today they were a little bit faster than us, especially in the straights. At Watkins as well, we were fighting crazy hard. In the GT traffic, I basically caught (Grist), two or three seconds in two laps. I think he didn’t expect me to try in the last corner, and I did it. I tried to put him inside, he turned on me, and we had contact. I think that’s what happens when you race really hard. I’m really happy; I expected to finish second today because of our pace, but I’m happy it worked out.”
Grist disagreed with Fraga’s assessment of the situation. “It’s pretty clear what happened. At Watkins Glen I raced clean, here I raced clean. I guess we know how we can race now.”
Fraga and Robinson ended up with the victory, Grist and Balogh were second, and Wayne Boyd and Anthony Mantella were third in the No. 17 AWA Racing Duqueine. Fraga and Robinson have 1115 points, with Boyd and Mantella in second with 934. Grist is alone in third at 928 after Balogh missed the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen.