IMSA: CORE scores breakthrough win at CTMP; Ford, Mercedes score GT class wins

By Kyle LavigneJul 8, 2018, 7:47 PM EDT

Photo courtesy of IMSA

Courtesy IMSA Newswire

BOWMANVILLE, Ontario, Canada – Canadian Tire Motorsport Park has been a strong venue for co-drivers Jon Bennett and Colin Braun dating back to their days racing in the American Le Mans Series Prototype Challenge (PC) class.

Coming into the weekend, they’d won three PC races at the ultra-quick, 2.54-mile circuit, the most recent coming in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship PC class in 2016. In Sunday’s two-hour and 40-minute Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix, the longtime teammates took it to another level.

Driving the No. 54 CORE autosport ORECA 07 Gibson LMP2 entry, Braun took the lead from Jordan Taylor in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R with eight laps remaining in what would be a 116-lap race. It capped a last-to-first run for the No. 54, as for the second consecutive week, the team elected to have Bennett start the race after Braun had captured the Motul Pole Award in qualifying.

The penalty for changing starting drivers is to start from the rear of the class field, but Bennett turned in a solid opening stint before handing the controls to Braun. He went on to win by 3.431 seconds over Taylor to take the first WeatherTech Championship Prototype class victory for himself, Bennett and the whole team.

“Since we unloaded, it’s been a Cinderella weekend for us,” Bennett said. “It’s nice to see our program and the Porsche program at the top of the charts in all the session and pole positions. Our team was working well all weekend. Colin was amazing all weekend, walk-on-water amazing.

“I don’t have to tell you what kind of momentum that gave us. Qualifying is qualifying, and racing is racing, so it carried over to the race. My job and our strategy has always been: return a square, damage-free car to Colin and go and that’s what we did. A lot of great strategy from his dad (engineer) Jeff Braun, and holy cow, here we are.”

It was Bennett’s 15th career IMSA victory (nine WeatherTech Championship, six ALMS) and was Braun’s 16th IMSA win (nine WeatherTech, five ALMS, two GRAND-AM). This is the team’s first year in the Prototype class. The longtime PC class competitors raced a Porsche in the WeatherTech Championship GTD class last year before moving to the Prototype ranks.

It was their second straight podium result in a week after taking the runner-up spot in the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen last Sunday and was the third podium run of the season for the No. 54 team, which finished third in the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona.

“It’s so cool to get the first win for CORE at this level,” Braun said. “It’s been a pleasure driving with Jon all these years. We’ve had a lot of firsts together and done a lot of cool things and this is another one of those things in a long line.

“Hats off to the CORE guys. We had great strategy all day. We saved fuel when we needed to, we saved tires when we needed to and we just played our cards the right way and got it done when it mattered. It was important in this race to not get too excited at the beginning. We just sort of laid in the weeds all day and slowly worked our way up and we were there when it mattered at the end.”

Taylor and co-driver Renger van der Zande combined to lead a race-high 71 laps en route to second place in the No. 10 Cadillac DPi-V.R. It also was their third podium result of the season and first since a third-place outing in April’s BUBBA burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach.

Finishing third were Eric Curran and Felipe Nasr in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R for Action Express. It was the fourth consecutive Canadian Tire Motorsport Park podium for Curran, who also finished second in 2015 and won the race in each of the past two years with then-co-driver Dane Cameron.

It was Curran and Nasr’s fourth podium result in seven races and enabled them to take over the WeatherTech Championship Prototype class points lead by one marker, 198-197, over their Action Express teammate, Filipe Albuquerque, in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Cadillac DPi.

Albuquerque and co-driver Christian Fittipaldi finished fourth with Helio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor rounding out the top five in the No. 7 Acura Team Penske Acura ARX-05 DPi race car.

The WeatherTech Championship Prototype class returns to action next month in the two-hour, 40-minute Continental Tire Road Race Showcase at Road America on Aug. 3-5.

Perfectly-Timed Pit Stop Sends No. 67 Ford GT of Briscoe, Westbrook to Victory at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park

Richard Westbrook, Ryan Briscoe scored their second win of the IMSA season on Sunday. Photo courtesy of IMSA

Some IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship races are won on the track and some are won in the pits.

During Sunday’s Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP), it was a case of the latter for the winning No. 67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT of Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class.

After starting second – one week after collecting the pole position at Watkins Glen International – the No. 67 paced itself throughout the first half of the race, as each of the four manufacturers in the class took their turns atop the leaderboard.

With less than an hour remaining, Westbrook took the reins from starting co-driver Briscoe and ran second behind the No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C7.R of Antonio Garcia. Garcia then ducked into the pits as the class was set to cycle through another round of stops and Westbrook cycled into the lead.

Drama quickly began to unfold as the No. 6 Acura Team Penske Acura DPi of Juan Pablo Montoya lost a tire on track, bringing out a full-course caution. Aware of the situation, the No. 67 Ford dove into the pits immediately before the caution was called and completed its stop as the safety car exited pit lane.

“You never stop believing,” said Westbrook. “We really improved the car after first practice. It was a real handful. And at period of times during the race, it was still a handful. We see stuff from the pickup. But when the guys gave me some clear track, I managed to clean up the tires and the pace wasn’t too bad.

“They just did a great call, so this goes to the team and my fantastic teammate giving us a fantastic chance putting it on the front row, which was definitely over-achieving. It just gives us great confidence knowing we can win in this way. It’s just great to be part of.”

The win at CTMP is the second of the year for Westbrook and Briscoe, who also delivered Ford Chip Ganassi Racing’s 200th team win at the Rolex 24 At Daytona in January.

And for the first time this season, the team entered the race weekend not in the GTLM championship lead, but in second place behind teammates Joey Hand and Dirk Mueller in the No. 66 Ford GT, who won last Sunday at at Watkins Glen. However, with their victory and a fifth-place finish for the No. 66 at CTMP, Westbrook and Briscoe reclaimed their position at the top.

“Unreal,” said Briscoe of getting the championship lead back. “This result today, as Rick said, played the strategy perfectly, play the traffic, and Rick just drove unbelievably. I mean the car was not easy to drive today. He was just masterful. What a result. We’ll definitely take that.”

A pair of Corvettes rounded out the remaining steps on the GTLM podium, with the No. 3 of Garcia and co-driver Jan Magnussen holding on to second place and the No. 4 Corvette of Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin in third. With the runner-up result, the No. 3 moves into second place in the point standings, six points out of first, 181-175.

Keating, Bleekemolen Drive Mercedes-AMG to Victory at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park

Mercedes-AMG Team Riley Motorsports took their first win of the year on Sunday. Photo courtesy of IMSA

Mercedes-AMG returned to victory lane Sunday in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with Ben Keating and Jeroen Bleekemolen co-driving to the win in the GT Daytona (GTD) class in the Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Bleekemolen capitalized on a late-race restart to get around the No. 14 3GT Racing Lexus RC F GT3 of Kyle Marcelli for the win. The pass came with 14 minutes remaining, one lap after the restart, with Bleekemolen leading the final 13 laps en route to winning the race by 2.919 seconds.

It was the first win of the season for Keating and Bleekemolen and the No. 33 Team Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3, and the team’s first since Circuit of The Americas in May, 2017.

“I’m excited to be back in victory lane,” said Keating. “It’s been over a year since we’ve had a win, so it’s nice to be back. We had a really good car today. We came out of the truck with this setup. We really hit it well.”

“The Lexus was struggling a little more than I was,” added Bleekemolen. “We were fighting and I got a little bit of a gap, and then we tried to keep it and just bring it home. (Marcelli) had a little slide going through Turn 9. I tried for Turn 10, I got inside of him there. He gave me the space, so I took it.”

The win also keeps Keating and Bleekemolen alive in the GTD championship hunt. The duo entered the weekend 21 points behind the points-leading No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 of Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers – who finished fourth – and 20 points behind Katherine Legge in the No. 86 SiriusXM Acura NSX GT3 for Meyer Shank Racing, who finished fifth co-driving with Alvaro Parente.

Sellers and Snow now lead Legge by three points, 183-180, while Keating and Bleekemolen are 14 points out of the lead.

The runner-up finish for Marcelli and co-driver Dominik Baumann was the duo’s second podium of the season. It also caps off a special weekend for Barrie, Ontario native Marcelli, who won Saturday’s IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge race.

“Of course, we’re competitors and we want to win and it’s a good thing when you’re upset with second,” said Marcelli. “We had a fast car, but we really struggled at the end of the stint with our rear tire and we knew that, so we did not need the yellows. I needed it to stay green.”

A hard-charging Andy Lally rounded out the podium, moving from fifth to third in the final 15 minutes in the No. 44 Magnus Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 co-driven by John Potter. Lally just missed a second-place finish, falling 0.095 seconds short of Marcelli at the stripe.

Five races remain in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season for the GTD class. Up next is the GT-only Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park on July 21.

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Strong rebounds for Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi amid some disappointments in the Indy 500

By Bruce MartinMay 28, 2023, 10:00 PM EDT

INDIANAPOLIS – Alex Palou had not turned a wheel wrong the entire Month of May at the Indy 500 until Rinus VeeKay turned a wheel into the Chip Ganassi Racing pole-sitter leaving pit road on Lap 94.

“There is nothing I could have done there,” Palou told NBC Sports. “It’s OK, when it is my fault or the team’s fault because everybody makes mistakes. But when there is nothing, you could have done differently there, it feels bad and feels bad for the team.”

Marcus Ericsson was a master at utilizing the “Tail of the Dragon” move that breaks the draft of the car behind him in the closing laps to win last year’s Indianapolis 500. On Sunday, however, the last of three red flags in the final 16 laps of the race had the popular driver from Sweden breathing fire after Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden beat him at his own game on the final lap to win the Indianapolis 500.

Despite the two disappointments, team owner Chip Ganassi was seen on pit road fist-bumping a member on his four-car team in this year’s Indianapolis 500 after his drivers finished second, fourth, sixth and seventh in the tightly contested race.

Those are pretty good results, but at the Indianapolis 500, there is just one winner and 32 losers.

“There is only one winner, but it was a hell of a show,” three-time Indianapolis 500 winner and Chip Ganassi Racing consultant Dario Franchitti told NBC Sports. “Alex was very fast, and he got absolutely caught out in somebody else’s wreck. There was nothing he could have done, but he and the 10 car, great recovery.

“Great recovery by all four cars because at half distance, we were not looking very good.”

After 92 laps, the first caution flew for Sting Ray Robb of Dale Coyne Racing hitting the Turn 1 wall.

During pit stops on Lap 94, Palou had left his stall when the second-place car driven by VeeKay ran into him, putting Palou’s Honda into the wall. The car sustained a damaged front wing, but the Chip Ganassi crew was able to get him back in the race on the lead lap but in 28^th position.

Palou ultimately would fight his way to a fourth-place finish in a race the popular Spaniard could have won. His displeasure with VeeKay, whom he sarcastically called “a legend” on his team radio after the incident, was evident.

“The benefit of being on pole is you can drive straight and avoid crashes, and he was able to crash us on the side on pit lane, which is pretty tough to do, but he managed it,” Palou told NBC Sports. “Hopefully next year we are not beside him. Hopefully, next year we have a little better luck.”

Palou started on the pole and led 36 laps, just three fewer than race leader Pato O’Ward of Arrow McLaren Racing.

“We started really well, was managing the fuel as we wanted, our car was pretty good,” Palou said. “Our car wasn’t great, we dropped to P4 or P5, but we still had some good stuff.

“On the pit stop, the 21 (VeeKay) managed to clip us. Nothing we could have done there. It was not my team’s fault or my fault.

“We had to drop to the end. I’m happy we made it back to P4. We needed 50 more laps to make it happen, but it could have been a lot worse after that contact.

“I learned a lot, running up front at the beginning and in mid-pack and then the back. I learned a lot.

“It feels amazing when you win it and not so good when things go wrong. We were a bit lucky with so many restarts at the end to make it back to P4 so I’m happy with that.”

Palou said the front wing had to be changed and the toe-in was a bit off, but he still had a fast car.

In fact, his Honda was the best car at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway all month. His pole-winning four lap average speed of 234.217 miles per hour around the 2.5-mile Indianapolis Motor Speedway was a record for this fabled race.

Palou looked good throughout the race, before he had to scratch and claw and race his way back to the top-five after he restarted 28^th.

In the Indianapolis 500, however, the best car doesn’t always win.

“It’s two years in a row that we were leading the race at the beginning and had to drop to last,” Palou said. “Maybe next year, we will start in the middle of the field and go on to win the race.

“I know he didn’t do it on purpose. It’s better to let that pass someday.”

Palou said the wild racing at the end was because the downforce package used in Sunday’s race means the drivers have to be aggressive. The front two cars can battle for the victory, but cars back in fourth or fifth place can’t help determine the outcome of the race.

That is when the “Tail of the Dragon” comes into the play.

Franchitti helped celebrate Ericsson’s win in 2022 with his “Tail of the Dragon” zigzag move – something he never had to do in any of his three Indianapolis 500 victories because they all finished under caution.

In 2023, however, IndyCar Race Control wants to make every attempt to finish the race under green, without going past the scheduled distance like NASCAR’s overtime rule.

Instead of extra laps, they stop the race with a red flag, to create a potential green-flag finish condition.

“You do what you have to do to win within the rules, and it’s within the rules, so you do it,” Franchitti said. “The race is 200 laps and there is a balance.

“Marcus did a great job on that restart and so did Josef. It was just the timing of who was where and that was it.

“If you knew it was going to go red, you would have hung back on the lap before.

“Brilliant job by the whole Ganassi organization because it wasn’t looking very good at half-distance.

“Full marks to Josef Newgarden and Team Penske.”

Franchitti is highly impressed by how well Ericsson works with CGR engineer Brad Goldberg and how close this combination came to winning the Indianapolis 500 two-years-in-a-row.

It would have been the first back-to-back Indy 500 winner since Helio Castroneves in 2001 and 2002.

“Oh, he’s a badass,” Franchitti said Ericsson. “He proved it last year. He is so calm all day. What more do you need? As a driver, he’s fast and so calm.”

Ericsson is typically in good spirits and jovial.

He was stern and direct on pit road after the race.

“I did everything right, I did an awesome restart, caught Josef off-guard and pulled away,” Ericsson said on pit lane. “It’s hard to pull away a full lap and he got me back.

“I’m mostly disappointed with the way he ended. I don’t think it was fair and safe to do that restart straight out of the pits on cold tires for everyone.

“To me, it was not a good way to end that race.

“Congrats to Josef. He didn’t do anything wrong. He is a worthy champion, but it shouldn’t have ended like that.”

Palou also didn’t understand the last restart, which was a one-start showdown.

“I know that we want to finish under green,” Palou said. “Maybe the last restart I did, I didn’t understand. It didn’t benefit the CGR team.

“I’m not very supportive of the last one, but anyway.”

Dixon called the red flags “a bit sketchy.”

“The red flags have become a theme to the end of the race, but sometimes they can catch you out,” Dixon said. “I know Marcus is frustrated with it.

“All we ask for is consistency. I think they will do better next time.

“It’s a tough race. People will do anything they can to win it and with how these reds fall, you have to be in the right place at the right time. The problem is when they throw a Red or don’t throw a Red dictates how the race will end.

“It’s a bloody hard race to win. Congrats to Josef Newgarden and to Team Penske.”

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500