2015 Tudor USCC: Canadian Tire Motorsport Park preview
Porsche North America Racing heads to the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (formerly known as Mosport) this weekend still in search of its first Tudor United SportsCar Championship of 2015.
Last time out at the Six Hours of Watkins Glen, Team Falken gave the Porsche 911 RSR its first victory of the year, beating the no. 912 works entry of Jörg Bergmeister and Earl Bamber in wet-dry-wet race at the upstate New York track.
2014 saw PNAR triumph at the season-opening 24 Hours of Daytona as well as the 12 Hours of Sebring but this season hasn’t proved as kind to the factory outfit with bad luck and mechanical problems keeping the no. 911 and no. 912 Porsche 911 RSRs away from the top step of the USCC podium.
Watkins Glen looked like a turning point with the no. 911 car of Patrick Pilet and Nick Tandy leading the way early on thanks to the former’s heroics during a damp opening stint.
Unfortunately, the timing of safety cars saw them drop away from the podium places, while simultaneously promoting the sister no. 912 entry into second, challenging the Team Falken car for victory in the closing stages.
The result was still the factory Porsche squad’s best finish of the season so far, with Bergmeister and Bamber taking second, bettering Pilet and Michael Christensen’s third place from Laguna Seca in May.
Last season, Tandy and 2014 co-driver Richard Lietz finished fifth at Mosport in the no. 911 Porsche 991 RSR while Christensen and Patrick Long (both of whose factory programmes see them racing in the FIA WEC full-time this year) finished ninth in the no. 912 car.
The 2.459-mile Canadian Tire Motorsport Park track is one of the faster venues on the calendar, with majority of its ten corners featuring long, sweeping radii (a world away from the twisting street courses that made up the early part of the 2015 calendar).
After today’s practice, GTLM qualifying takes place at 4:40pm Eastern Time on Saturday, before the 160-minute race is flagged off on Sunday at 12:05pm ET.
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