Samantha Tan Racing by Rinaldi Racing moved itself back into championship contention with a convincing run to 2nd in-class at the 1000km Circuit Paul Ricard, round two of this year’s GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup.

Following an early end to its GTWC Europe season opener at Monza in April, ST Racing’s second round got off to a promising start when the #38 Ferrari 488 GT3 – driven by team owner Samantha Tan, fellow 2021 24H SERIES Overall GT Drivers’ champion Jon Miller, and Isaac Tutumlu Lopez – qualified 3rd fastest of the Pro-Am runners. The run, good enough for 49th on the overall grid, was banked courtesy of a 1m 55.347s from Jon, the third fastest Pro-Am lap across all three qualifying sessions. Similarly competitive times from Samantha and Isaac hinted towards the Rinaldi-prepared Ferrari’s strong pace around Circuit Paul Ricard.

Carrying his qualifying momentum into the race proper, Jon quickly moved up from 49th to 39th place overall, and 2nd in-class, during the opening laps. A mistimed pass for position by a rival however caused the #38 Ferrari to spin shortly afterwards, dropping ST Racing to the tail of the field and off the Pro-Am podium. Jon though was already back up to 3rd in Pro/Am when he handed the Ferrari over to Samantha shortly before one-third distance.

After a consistent double stint, Samantha, back at Paul Ricard for the first time since 2021, had worked her way up to 38th overall and 2nd in-class before handing the Ferrari over to Isaac for the closing night stage, the 2013 Spanish GT Champion dutifully bringing the car home without incident for the Pro/Am runners-up spot.

With standings leader Barwell Motorsport eliminated on the first lap, the result has catapulted ST Racing with Rinaldi back into Pro/Am Teams’ championship contention in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup. 2nd in-class also marks ST Racing’s best result in an endurance event since the Canadian team claimed Silver class honours at last year’s Indianapolis 8 Hours.

Samantha Tan, team co-owner/driver: “P2 at the 1000km of Paul Ricard! After a few months of bad luck, especially after Monza, we kept working hard and were finally rewarded with a podium. Rinaldi gave us a great car and we qualified P3! Jon took the start and unfortunately got hit and spun out 20 minutes in, putting us in last. Thankfully, nothing broke on the car and we had an incredible recovery drive and flawless run to the finish. We gave a proper send off to our lovely 488 GT3, as we will now be running the 296 GT3 for the remainder of the season.”

Kenneth Tan, team principal: “Finally we showed our potential. I’m very relieved, I want to thank the Rinaldi Racing team for preparing a very strong car. Looking forward to Spa in our new Ferrari 296 GT3. Forza Ferrari!”

Jon Miller, driver: “We’re thrilled with the result after a hard-fought race. We missed out on the bulk of the pre-season test here with an odd technical problem, and without any laps at Monza we’re still very much learning the 488 GT3. With not much practice time this weekend, and some of it affected by rain, I went into qualifying having to really think differently about my approach. I’m happy to report that things clicked, and even with some traffic in-front of me, I was able to set a lap that I was relatively pleased with. I found some things in the driving style of the Ferrari that helped to extract more out of the car and this peak of this tire. The Rinaldi guys executed perfect stops all night and we’re looking forward to the Spa 24 hour in the 296 GT3 up next!”

Isaac Tutumlu Lopez, driver: “It was a very good race! We knew we had a car with strong pace, I think we did a great job altogether setting the car up to be easy to drive while also making sure it was competitive over the length of a stint. Jon had a great start and Sam backed it up with a solid drive, so we were in a good position when I hopped in the car for my stint. I pushed hard during my first hour while fighting for P2 until the team told me that P3 had a problem and we had enough of a margin to bring it home safe and sound. Happy to achieve this result with the team heading into the 24 Hours of Spa!”

Samantha Tan Racing with Rinaldi continues its GTWC Europe Endurance Cup campaign on 29 June to 2 July on the North American outfit’s second stab at the legendary Spa 24 Hours. Prior to that, both ST Racing and BMW M Motorsport brand ambassador Samantha Tan will be back in GT World Challenge America action with the #38 BMW M4 GT3 on 16-17-18 June, round four of the season taking competitors to the Virginia International Raceway.

This weekend marks the unofficial, official start of the Canadian racing season with the Castrol Victoria Day Speedfest at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Again this year, the event is an all Canadian affair, headlined by the NASCAR Pinty's Series and the FEL Motorsports Sports Car Championship Canada. Supporting the two headliners are the FEL Emzone Radical Cup Canada, and the biggest field of the weekend in the the Super Production Challenge.

2023 marks the third year for the FEL Sports Car Championship Canada, a series that bills itself as Canada professional road racing series. The series has been off to a bit of a rocky start, with it's inaugural season of 2021 still being affected by Covid. In an attempt to help increase grid sizes this year after disappointing car counts in the first couple of seasons, the series introduced the new, entry level TCA class. Four cars are registered this weekend for the class debut.

Radical qualifying on Friday gave us our first surprise of the weekend when Canadian Superbike star Kenny Riedmann put his car on pole, despite Jake Cowden being 3 to 4 tenths faster in the practice sessions leading up to qualifying.

The first race of Saturday morning however, run in wet and foggy conditions, saw Jake Cowden make up for qualifying, taking the lead immediately off the start, with fellow young gun Gavin Sanders, who qualified third, also getting by pole sitter Riedmann.

The race turned into a bit of a procession for the top three, with Cowden easing away from Sanders at about a second a lap, while Sanders was easing away from Riedmann at the same pace, the top three qualifiers taking the first podium of the season.

Sports Car Championship Canada qualifying gave us our second surprise of Friday afternoon, with Dean Baker taking the TCR pole over Justin Di Benedetto and veteran Richard Boake.

In GT4 qualifying, Jack Polito put his Mustang on pole over the Mercedes of Demi Chalkais, with another Mercedes, of Marc Lafleur, taking the third and final qualifying spot in the three car field.

The rain and fog moved in for the FEL Sports Car Championship race, which saw a significant portion of the race run under full course caution conditions.

Similar to the Radical start, GT4 second place qualifier Demi Chalkais quickly took the lead from pole sitter Jack Pollito and held it when the yellow flags came out on lap one. Soon after the yellow ended, Polito got back around the Chalkais's Mercedes, and held the lead until a late yellow ended the race.

TCR saw Di Benedetto jump quickly past pole sitter Baker, as did LP Montour. There was no drama for the leading three the rest of the way as Di Benedetto scored the win from Montour and Baker.

The early caution came out for contact between Ron Tomlinson and Quinn Attrell on the first lap. Atterll's race was over right there, while Tomlinson limped around to the pits, only to retire shortly after.

Unfortunately, weather really played it's hand with the rain and fog resulting in the cancellation of the NASCAR Pinty's Series practice, scheduled to begin immediately after lunch. This morphed the late afternoon qualifying session into a practice session, with the grid being set according to the rule book, which will line the cars up based on final points from last season.

As a result, Marc-Antoine Camirand will start from pole, with Kevin Lacroix lining up along side him on the front row. DJ Kennington and Treyten Lapcevich will make up row two, with Alex Tagliani rounding out the top five. The race is scheduled to start tomorrow at 1:00pm and can be streamed live on TSN+

NASCAR then made the decision at about 3:00pm to cancel all on track action for the day, with an optional 15 minute warm up session scheduled for 10:00am Sunday morning.

While the NASCAR Pinty's Series called it an early day, the FEL Series didn't, with the Emzone Radical Cup cars heading back on track just before a 3:45 in the afternoon, about an hour and a half behind schedule, with the NASCAR Pinty's cancellation giving them a window to get their race in.

Race one winner Jake Cowden led Kenny Riedmann and Gavin Sanders to the green, with 8 cars taking the flag. The race was pretty much a carbon copy of race one, with Cowden opening up about a second a lap on Sanders, while Sanders opening up a second, or more, on Riedmann. Cowden would take his second win of the day by lapping everyone up to third place finisher Kenny Riedmann.

Race two for the Sports Car Canada Championship got under way with brightening skies but a still very wet track.

Jack Polito again led the GT4 class to the green, as did Dean Baker with the TCR cars, and with more green flag running than in race one, Polito was able to ease away from Chalkais, who eventually surrendered second overall to the eventual TCR winner Dean Baker.

The yellow came out almost immediately after the drop of the green when contact put race one TCR winner Justin Di Benedetto into the tires in turn one. Lap 12 saw another yellow as Megan Tomlinson ran off in turn 5a and got beached in the gravel, and the race ended under a yellow as Gary Kwok and Ron Tomlinson ran side by side up into 5 for the final podium spot, with Kwok running off and hitting the wall hard.

As the Super Production Challenge took to the track, the skies that were brightening towards the end of the SCCC race were again starting to look a little gloomy.

Like the races before it, the Super Production Class was, if not a mirror of race one, then very similar.

Kurt Wittmer again went flag to flag to take his second victory of the weekend (Ed. Note – all three series top classes ended in sweeps today, with Jake Cowden taking both Radical races, Jack Polito taking both GT4 wins, and Kurt Wittmer taking both SPC wins), followed again by Gabriel Lacombe.

In the Production class, race one saw Ethan Bell take the win, followed by Sylvain Laporte and Vincent Desautels. In race two, Sylvain Laporte won from Connor Bell and rookie Blake Kelly, while race one winner Ethan Bell finished well down the order.

In Compact class, Frederic Bernier grabbed the win in race one, followed by Mario Berthiaume and Cameron Nabert. Race two saw the same drivers on the podium, but in a different order, with Nabert grabbing the win followed by Bernier and Berthiaume.

Each class has one more race to go on Sunday, with the Super Production Challenge getting things kicked off at 10:15am, followed by the Emzone Radical Cup Canada race. The morning schedule might be put back a bit as NASCAR is now scheduled to have their optional shakedown from 10:00 to 10:15.

Lunch follows the Radical race, with the eBay Motors 200 NASCAR Pinty's headliner getting under way at 1:00pm, and the final Sports Car Championship Canada race closing out the weekend from 3:20 to 4:00.

As always, if you can't be here, you can stream the NASCAR Pinty's race live on TSN+.

Race 2 weekend was another success for our team. We had wins and podiums on all the classes we entered this weekend.

Jeremy Hammond brought home 3 wins in Formula Libre with his #06 Ligier F4; his new personal best of 1:09.325 was set during Qualifying 1.

Jerry Kroll in the #33 Jevitty Life sponsored F4 came home with a 2nd and 3rd place podium positions throughout the weekend. His pace was affected by the supply shortage of Hankook tires this weekend.

Derek Webster in the #819 Van Diemen FC had two 2nd place finishes in Formula Libre; an adventure around T3 on the last race has set him back with a DNF.

Naz Degan continued to improve her pace in the #022 Jevitty sponsored Lamborghini Gallardo Super Trofeo. She finished 3rd in GTO class on Sat's race 1. Unfortunately a mechanical issue had forced her for an early retirement on Sunday. She'll be back stronger for the next one.

Ivan Dianov in the #333 KTM Xbow GT4 had two 2nd place and a 3rd place finish in GTO as well. This is his first full weekend with us and already showing some very promising results.

In the IPE-B class, Clint Logue with his #06 Blackthorn Porsche Cayman won race 1 and 3. A small come together in race 2 has set him back with a 5th place finish. There is an ongoing protest against his new gearbox so the outcome will be announced when its all clarified. We win on the track and not by being sour losers.

Our #023 Jevitty Tesla Model 3 Performance also driven by Jerry Kroll had once again showed strong pace throughout the weekend. He was up there running with the GTO cars all weekend long. We can't wait to have more competitions in the IPE-A class.

Another one of our drivers worth noting is Nobuyoshi Torigoe in his #77 Spec Miata. There were 10 cars in this highly competitive class in which Nobu came out on top in 2 of the occasions. All the training over the winter months have definitely helped him stay competitive at this level.

Mark Clyde in his #170 Spec Miata had shown very good form throughout the weekend. Very close to the leaders all weekend and we are sure to expect more performance from him in the next few races.

Our crew member Gordon Wong has driven the #177 MX5 NC this weekend in IP2 class. He put on some spectacular racing in all 3 races. He finished 2nd in the first 2 races and with fire behind his helmet, he finally scored his first win of the season as well.

We'd also like to congratulate our two novice drivers, Nick Hoffman and Daniel Friedman. Thank you for the 1-2 finish in the NCW race with our #17 and #71 Spec Miatas.

Please stay tuned for more exciting battles to come in Race 3 on Jun 24/25.

Big round of applause to our team of hard working and dedicated crew members.

Special thanks to our sponsors and partners in helping us to success:

Mission Raceway Park
#motul
#hoosiertire
AutoMind Collision
Jevitty Scan by Bodycomp Imaging
#TriCityWarehousing

Steven Hubert Chief Steward
Ron Woltman confirmed today as Deputy Chief Steward

Super Production Challenge series will begin its 2023 season at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (Bowmanville, Ontario) from May 19 to 21. This will be the first of five events (each consisting of two or three races) for about fifty competitors entered (more than 60 drivers in total).

On the official side, Super Production Challenge also wanted to hire staff with great experience and professionalism. Thus, after the announcement during the winter of the recruitment of Steven Hubert as Chief Steward, the series is pleased to confirm today the presence of Ronald Woltman as Deputy Chief Steward. He replaces Jean-Marc Lavoie in this position.

Ronald Woltman was Series Chief Steward for the last few years, a position he held, among others, in many motorsport organizations throughout his decades-long career as race official.

He has notably worked in series such as the Honda/Michelin in Canada, the Indy Lights in the United States, in addition to having been a driver in Formula 1600 and in the Production class.

It should also be remembered that the series' new Chief Steward, Steven Hubert, has 12 years of experience in Canadian motorsport. A volunteer in his early days at the Grand Prix de TroisRivières, he was then a flagger and official. He has been Race director in various provincial and national karting championships since 2013, assistant race director at GP3R (since 2022), Porsche GT3 Cup Canada official (2014-15) and for a multitude of other series and events.

In addition to Steven Hubert and Ronald Woltman, Super Production Challenge also reveals the full list of its officials for the upcoming season. We find Dominic St-Jean (President), Patrik Wittmer (Team Manager), Charles Matte (hospitality and set-up manager), Luc Bouchard (timing and scoring), Marie-Jeanne Bouchard (Hospitality, timing and scoring assistant and false grid help), Brigitte Lemieux (registration and stewards help), Ludovic Landry (data analysis), Mike Nilson and Mary McClure (technical inspection), Jean-Pierre Moisan (data retrieval and Tech inspection assistant), Nicolas Gariepy (photographer), Adam St-Amant (social media) and Pierre-Alexandre Gauthier (videographer).

“We have a list of competitors exceeding 50 teams and representing more than 60 drivers. With all these great people, it was also very important to have a solid staff of officials and that's exactly what we managed to put in place for this 2023 season," said Dominic St-Jean, president of the SPC series. “I welcome them, drivers, teams and officials,” he adds.