One month ago, Nick Tandy scored an overall victory for Porsche in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Today Tandy and co-driver Patrick Pilet stood on the top step of the podium at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park after dominating the GTLM class at the Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix.
“It’s been 18 months since I won a race in this series,” said Tandy. “So it feels like there is a bit of momentum coming behind the Porsche.”
Tandy and Pilet led virtually from flag to flag in the No. 911 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR, surrendering the point only briefly during pit stop cycles. The pair completed 122 laps on the roller-coaster 2.459-mile circuit and finished 15 seconds ahead of the No. 24 BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTE driven by John Edwards and Lucas Luhr. Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia were third in the No. 3 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R and extended their lead in the driver standings.
“The car was clearly the best car all weekend,” said Tandy. “It’s a testament to what the whole 911 crew has done. We did our strategy, our two stops, and it’s just how you want every race to go.”
Today’s victory broke a 14-race winless streak for the Porsche North America team, which scored its last victory at Sebring in March 2014.
Bill Auberlen and Dirk Werner stalked the race-leading Porsche throughout the race with their No. 25 BMW Team RLL BMW Z4 GTE, but fell to fourth in the closing minutes as Edwards in the sister No. 24 BMW and Garcia swept by in the final two laps.
With a car set up to accommodate a hot and slippery track, Garcia ran the fastest lap of the race in GTLM. Garcia’s record-setting lap at 1:15.340 was more than a second faster than the 1:16.577 mark set in 2014 by Jonathan Bomarito in a Viper. All eight GTLM entries were under Bomarito’s record in the first 10 minutes of the race.
Michelin and its technical partner teams from Porsche North America, BMW Team RLL, Corvette Racing and Risi Competizione Ferrari swept the top seven places in the factory-filled class.
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