Near perfect conditions met the crowd at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park Friday morning as the annual IMSA Chevrolet Grand Prix got underway with the VP SportCar Challenge.

 

In a strong showing for Canadians, Jonathan Woolridge finished the session in third spot, behind Jagger Jones and series points leader Steven Aghakhani. 

 

Meanwhile in the GSX class, the series name for GT4 cars, Jesse Lazre in the MIA McLLaren, who entered the weekend in second place in the points, lead the way, followed by long-time FEL and Ontario Formula 1600 contender Jack Polito in his beautiful Ford Mustang gave Canadian drivers a 1-2 sweep in the class. 

 

Practice 2 for the VP Challenge came immediately after lunch, giving the teams another session and a couple of hours to sort things out before qualifying later in the afternoon and was almost a carbon copy of the morning session.

 

In the P3 class, Woolridge was again the third quickest, while Lazare once again led Politio to Canadian 1-2 sweep in the GSX (GT4) class. 

 

The VP Challenge gets the racing underway tomorrow with Race 1 getting underway at 8:50am, available to Canadians live on IMSA.tv.

 

In Mazda MX5 Cup, often the most exciting racing of any weekend they are on track, Grande Prairie, Alberta’s Jonathan Neudorf is the lone Canadian in the series, coming into Canadian Tire Motorsport Park knocking on the door of the top 10, sitting 12th in points. In opening practice for the weekend, Neudorf went one better, finishing the session in 11th. 

 

Second practice for the MX5 Cup saw Neudorf end up 14th, while 17 year old phenom Connor Zilisch, who can already counts wins in LMP2, Mazda MX Cup and ARCA Menards competition in 2024, ended up 4th quickest. 

 

Qualifying goes at 9:55am while race 1 caps off the day tomorrow at 5:00pm, available live on IMSA.tv

 

Michelin Pilot Challenge took to the track after the MX5’s, and this series is loaded with Canadians, with 5 drivers in 4 cars in the GS class, including the all-Canadian entry of the #22 Porsche 718 of Twooth Autosport and drivers Travis Hill (who led this race for a number of laps last year) and Justin di Benedetto.

 

The TCR class features a pair of all-Canadian entries with the Montreal Motorsport Group Honda of LP Montour and Jon Brel and the Baker Racing Audi of father and son duo Dean and Sam Baker. Defending TCR champ Robert Wickens is in the #33 Bryan Herta Autosport Hyundai, along with BHA team mate Mark Wilkins in the #98 sister Hyundai. It wouldn’t be a Canadian sports car race without at least 1 Wittmer present, this weekend it’s Karl in the #93 Montreal Motorsport Group Honda Civic. 

 

In opening practice in the GS class, the #69 McLaren of Jesse Lazare set the fastest time. Next quickest Canadian was Daniel Morad in the #57 Winward Racing Mercedes in 4th, 4 tenths back of the pole time. The #34 JMF Motorsports Mercedes of Michai Stephens and BC’s Jesse Webb finished up 8th, just over 5 tenths back, while the #22 Twooth Porsche of Justin Di Benedetto and Travis Hill rounds out the Canadians in GS clocking the 19th quickest time in GS and 25th quickest overall, with Di Benedetto at the wheel. 

 

In TCR Dean Baker made it a sweep for Canadian drivers setting the quickest time, with Mark Wilkins team mate Mason Filippi taking his BHA Hyundai to third, 3 tenths off the quick time of Baker. LP Montour put the was close behind in 4th in the Montreal Motorsports Group Honda and Karl WIttmer a tenth behind his team mate in 5th. Robert Wickens teammate Harry Gottsacker was a further tenth behind in 6th, putting all 5 Canadian drivers and their teammates in the top 6.

 

In the final GS practice of the day, the Jesse Lazare Motorsports In Action McLaren with Michael de Quesada at the wheel slipped to 4th quickest, The Jesse Webb Mercedes managed 8th again, while the Morad Mercedes slipped back to 11th place and Twooth Audi of di Benedetto and Hill clocked in again at 19th. 

 

TCR saw Karl Wittmer put the Montreal Motorsport Group Honda up to 2nd, Harry Gotsacker moved the #33 Hyundai, shared with Robert Wickens, up to 3rd, LP Montour in the second Montreal Motorsport Group Honda was 4th, Mason Filipi, teamed with Mark Wilkins, ended the session in 7th, while Sam Baker took over the #52 Audi finishing 9th.

 

Qualifying for the Michelin Pilot Challenge opens the day tomorrow and gets underway at 8:00am, with the race going green at 1:25pm and available for Canadian viewers live on IMSA.tv

 

Practice for the feature WeatherTech race saw mixed results for the Candians. In the top class for the weekend, P2, Canadian content was slim, with only John Farano and his Tower Motorsports team, but they put in a solid session and found themselves 2nd fastest, a mere .003 behind only the AO Racing team’s similar Oreca machine.

 

GTD Pro was not as encouraging for the Canadians. With no drivers in this class, all the Canadian content comes from a couple of teams, a pair of Multimatic Mustangs and the plaid Pfaff Mclaren. Unfortunately they finished 7th, 8th and 9th in the 9 car GTD field, although less than 1 second covered the entire field. 

 

In GTD, top Canadian was Kyle Marcelli in the Lamborghini Huracan in 3rd, followed by Roman DeAngelis in 5th (both Marcelli and DeAngelis being former Brian Graham Racing drivers in the Ontario Toyo Tires F1600 Championship in years gone by). Orey Fidani’s teammate Matt Bell put the AWA Corvette in 6th, while sometimes Canadian (and another former BGR driver) Misha Goikhberg putting the team’s Lamborghini 7th. Mikael Grenier’s teammate Mike Skeen put the Korthoff/Preston Motorsports Mercedes in 11th in the 13th car field.

 

WeatherTech practice 2 gets underway at 10:35am while qualifying goes tomorrow starting at 4:00pm.