No. 911 Porsche Takes Canadian Victory With Tandy And Pilet In GTLM

Porsche North America’s Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet led all but five of the 128 laps to score the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class victory in Sunday’s Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix presented by Hawk Performance at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. It was the first victory of the season for the drivers and the team.

Tandy won the pole position on Saturday in the No. 911 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR, becoming the first repeat pole GTLM winner in the history of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship, breaking a streak of 16 different pole winners beginning with the 2014 Rolex 24 At Daytona.

Tandy, overall winner of the recent 24 Hours of Le Mans, attempted to stretch out an advantage as soon as the green flag dropped on the race. That advantage was negated by the event’s lone caution period 37 minutes into the race for a stopped Prototype Challenge (PC) car.

Following the pit stop, Pilet quickly regained the lead and stayed out in front until his next scheduled stop. With the race run in warm, sunny conditions, the team elected to put Tandy back into the car for the run to the finish. Tandy crossed the stripe 15.525 seconds ahead of John Edwards in the No. 24 IHG Rewards Club BMW Z4 GTLM to earn the second consecutive victory for Porsche, which won two weeks ago at Watkins Glen International with Team Falken Tire.

No. 24 BMW Team RLL drivers Edwards and Lucas Luhr also won the DEKRA Green Challenge Award, presented to the most environmentally clean, fast and efficient GTLM competitor at each TUDOR Championship race.

Rounding out the podium at Canada’s oldest and largest motorsport complex was Corvette Racing’s No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R driven by Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia. The third-place result moved the No. 3 teammates into sole possession of the GTLM points lead by two, 128-126, over No. 25 IHG Rewards Club BMW Z4 GTLM co-drivers Bill Auberlen and Dirk Werner, who finished fourth.

Corvette Racing co-drivers Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner finished fifth in the No. 4 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R, battling back from eighth to start the race.

The PC and GT Daytona (GTD) classes will be in the spotlight at the next TUDOR Championship event, when they join the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge in the Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park on Saturday, July 25. The Prototype (P) and GTLM classes return to action in the Continental Tire Road Race Showcase at Road America on Sunday, August 9.

NOTES:

• The only other drivers to lead laps in the Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix presented by Hawk Performance were Dirk Werner in the No. 25 BMW Team RLL IHG Rewards Club BMW Z4 GTLM and Antonio Garcia driving the No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C7.R. Werner led twice for two laps, while Garcia led three consecutive laps before pitting after Pilet’s green flag pit stop. Tandy then regained the lead when Garcia pitted.

• The No. 17 Falken Tire Porsche 911 RSR driven by Bryan Sellers and Wolf Henzler retired with 20 minutes remaining due to mechanical difficulties. The winner of the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen was the only GTLM competitor to retire from the event.

Nick Tandy, Driver - No. 911 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR: “The car was clearly the best car all weekend. It’s a testament to what the whole 911 crew has done all weekend. We tried to pull a gap to the others, but the caution came out and negated our advantage. Even though perhaps the other two Porsches were so fast, it shows what the team has done. We did our strategy, our two stops and it’s just how you want every race to go. (It may have been) a bit boring, but great for us.

“It’s been 18 months since I won a race in this series, and 18 months since I’ve been on a podium in this series. So it feels like there is a bit of momentum coming behind the Porsche. We won at Le Mans, and Porsche won at Watkins Glen. Everyone is excited, enjoying the racing. And we’re all committed to making our weekends better, and it makes a big difference when everyone is happy. So this is great.”

Patrick Pilet, Driver - No. 911 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR: “It was an amazing weekend. It was pure strategy. We had a really good car, really quick in practice and qualifying, but we changed the car for the race. We knew on the restart we would get overtaken by the others because we were slower on top speed, but it helped us survive in the straight line. We balanced the car in the warm-up just after five laps, so it worked perfect. I had a lot of pressure from the BMW and traffic was not always really easy.

“It was pretty tricky for me because I ran without A/C. It was quite hot in the car and I didn’t want to make any mistakes, so we practiced a lot with the driver changes, and we got it down to 17 seconds, and we need 23 seconds worth of fuel, so it was the best strategy, to keep really focused and not make a mistake, it’s great to have fresh drivers.”

Contact:

nsiebens@imsa.com

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