2017 Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix

The 2017 Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix was a sports car race sanctioned by the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA). The race was held at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada on July 9, 2017. The race was the seventh round of the 2017 IMSA SportsCar Championship.

The Canadian Tire Motorsports Park

Background

Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, where the race was held.

IMSA's president Scott Atherton confirmed the Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix was part of the series' schedule for the 2017 IMSA SportsCar Championship at Road America's victory lane in August 2016.[1] It was the fourth consecutive year the event was held as part of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the thirty-sixth annual running of the race. The 2017 Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix was the seventh of twelve scheduled sports car races of 2017 by IMSA, and was the fourth round not held on the held as part of the North American Endurance Cup.[2] The race was held at the ten-turn 2.459 mi (3.957 km) Canadian Tire Motorsports Park in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada on July 9, 2017.[2] After the Sahlen's Six Hours of the Glen one week earlier, Jordan Taylor and Ricky Taylor led the Prototype Drivers' Championship with 202 points, ahead of João Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi with 182 points, and Misha Goikhberg and Stephen Simpson with 167 points.[3] With 180 points, the PC Drivers' Championship was led by James French and Patricio O'Ward with a thirty-point advantage over Don Yount.[3] Antonio García and Jan Magnussen led the GTLM Drivers' Championship with 154 points, ahead of Joey Hand and Dirk Müller with 146 points.[3] In GTD, the Drivers' Championship was led by Alessandro Balzan and Christina Nielsen with 173 points, ahead of Ben Keating and Jeroen Bleekemolen with 171 points. Cadillac, Chevrolet, and Mercedes-AMG were leading their respective Manufacturers' Championships, while Wayne Taylor Racing, Performance Tech Motorsports, Corvette Racing, and Scuderia Corsa each led their own Teams' Championships.[3]

Entries

A total of 36 cars took part in the event split across 4 classes. 10 cars were entered in P, 3 in PC, 8 in GTLM, and 15 in GTD.[4] In P, David Ostella and Nicholas Boulle replaced José Gutiérrez and Olivier Pla in the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports entry.[5] Pipo Derani joined Johannes van Overbeek in the #22 Tequila Patrón ESM. In PC, Ryan Lewis joined Don Yount in the #20 BAR1 Motorsports entry. Garett Grist and James Vance shared the #26 BAR1 Motorsports entry.[6] In GTD, Alex Job Racing and Dream Racing Motorsport skipped the event. Jörg Bergmeister returned to the Park Place Motorsports entry after missing the previous round at Watkins Glen due to a family emergency.[6] Bret Curtis returned to the Turner Motorsport entry.

Practice

There were three practice sessions preceding the start of the race on Saturday, two on Friday and one on Saturday. The first two one-hour sessions were on Friday morning and afternoon. The third on Saturday morning lasted an hour.[7]

Practice 1

The first practice session took place at 11:20 am ET on Friday and ended with Jordan Taylor topping the charts for Wayne Taylor Racing, with a lap time of 1:09.443.[8] The PC class was topped by the #38 Performance Tech Motorsports Oreca FLM09 of Patricio O'Ward with a time of 1:12.512.[9] Laurens Vanthoor was fastest in GTLM while Andy Lally set the fastest time in GTD.[9]

Pos.ClassNo.TeamDriverTimeGap
1P10Wayne Taylor RacingJordan Taylor1:09.443_
2P2Tequila Patrón ESMRyan Dalziel1:09.450+0.007
3P55Mazda MotorsportsJonathan Bomarito1:09.741+0.298
Sources:[10][11]

Practice 2

The second practice session took place at 3:55 pm ET on Friday and ended with Ryan Dalziel topping the charts for Tequila Patrón ESM, with a lap time of 1:08.994.[12] James French set the fastest time in PC. The GTLM class was topped by the #912 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR of Laurens Vanthoor with a time of 1:14.753. Patrick Pilet was second in the sister #911 car and John Edwards rounded out the top 3.[13] Sage Karam was fastest in GTD.[13]

Pos.ClassNo.TeamDriverTimeGap
1P2Tequila Patrón ESMRyan Dalziel1:08.994_
2P10Wayne Taylor RacingRicky Taylor1:09.053+0.059
3P22Tequila Patrón ESMPipo Derani1:09.093+0.099
Sources:[14][15]

Practice 3

The third and final practice session took place at 9:20 am ET on Saturday and ended with Stephen Simpson topping the charts for JDC-Miller MotorSports, with a lap time of 1:09.142.[16] Patricio O'Ward set the fastest time PC by 1.678 seconds ahead of Ryan Lewis in the #20 BAR1 Motorsports entry.[16] The GTLM class was topped by the #911 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR of Dirk Werner with a time of 1:14.799.[17] Tristan Vautier was fastest in GTD.[17] The session was red flagged two times. 20 minutes into the session, the #15 3GT Racing Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth crashed at turn 3 after going wide, and dipped into the grass launching the car into the tire barriers before becoming airborne. The car suffered heavy damage to the front, but Hawksworth was uninjured and exited his car without external aid.[18] The final stoppage came for debris on the track.[16]

Pos.ClassNo.TeamDriverTimeGap
1P85JDC-Miller MotorSportsStephen Simpson1:09.142_
2P10Wayne Taylor RacingJordan Taylor1:09.195+0.053
3P22Tequila Patrón ESMPipo Derani1:09.374+0.232
Sources:[19][20]

Qualifying

In Saturday afternoon's 90-minute four-group qualifying, each category had separate 15-minute sessions. Regulations stipulated that teams nominate one qualifying driver, with the fastest laps determining each class' starting order. IMSA arranged the grid to put Prototypes ahead of the PC, GTLM and GTD cars.[21][7]

The first was for cars in GTD class. Sage Karam qualified on pole for the class driving the #14 3GT Racing entry, besting Andrew Davis in the #57 Stevenson Motorsports entry.[22]

The second session of qualifying was for cars in the GTLM class. Dirk Werner qualified on pole driving the #911 car for Porsche GT Team, beating Bill Auberlen in the #25 BMW Team RLL entry by less than one tenth of a second.[23]

The third session of qualifying was for cars in the PC class. James French set the fastest time driving the #38 Performance Tech Motorsports entry.[24]

The final session of qualifying was for the P class. Ricky Taylor qualified on pole driving the #10 car for Wayne Taylor Racing, besting Mikhail Goikhberg in the #85 entry from JDC-Miller MotorSports.[24][22]

Qualifying results

Pole positions in each class are indicated in bold and by ‡.

Pos.ClassNo.TeamDriverTimeGapGrid
1P10 Wayne Taylor Racing Ricky Taylor1:08.459_1‡
2P85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Mikhail Goikhberg1:08.587+0.1282
3P2 Tequila Patrón ESM Scott Sharp1:08.886+0.4273
4P22 Tequila Patrón ESM Johannes van Overbeek1:08.934+0.4754
5P55 Mazda Motorsports Jonathan Bomarito1:08.959+0.5005
6P5 Mustang Sampling Racing Christian Fittipaldi1:09.173+0.7146
7P90 VisitFlorida Racing Marc Goossens1:09.286+0.8277
8P31 Whelen Engineering Racing Eric Curran1:09.895+1.4368
9P52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Nicholas Boulle1:09.958+1.4999
10P70 Mazda Motorsports Tom Long1:09.959+1.50010
11PC38 Performance Tech Motorsports James French1:11.471+3.01211‡
12PC26 BAR1 Motorsports Garett Grist1:13.193+4.73412
13PC20 BAR1 Motorsports Don Yount1:13.821+5.36213
14GTLM911 Porsche GT Team Dirk Werner1:14.085+5.62614‡
15GTLM25 BMW Team RLL Bill Auberlen1:14.103+5.64415
16GTLM912 Porsche GT Team Laurens Vanthoor1:14.251+5.79216
17GTLM24 BMW Team RLL Martin Tomczyk1:14.294+5.83517
18GTLM67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ryan Briscoe1:14.434+5.97518
19GTLM66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Joey Hand1:14.732+6.27319
20GTLM3 Corvette Racing Jan Magnussen1:14.844+6.38520
21GTLM4 Corvette Racing Oliver Gavin1:14.904+6.44521
22GTD14 3GT Racing Sage Karam1:16.563+8.10422‡
23GTD57 Stevenson Motorsports Andrew Davis1:16.828+8.26623
24GTD86 Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Jeff Segal1:17.106+8.36924
25GTD48 Paul Miller Racing Bryan Sellers1:17.149+8.64725
26GTD63 Scuderia Corsa Christina Nielsen1:17.149+8.69026
27GTD93 Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian Katherine Legge1:17.265+8.80627
28GTD16 Change Racing Corey Lewis1:17.281+8.82228
29GTD96 Turner Motorsport Bret Curtis1:17.524+9.06529
30GTD73 Park Place Motorsports Patrick Lindsey1:17.672+9.21330
31GTD75 SunEnergy1 Racing Kenny Habul1:17.817+9.35831
32GTD50 Riley Motorsports – WeatherTech Racing Cooper MacNeil1:17.959+9.50032
33GTD33 Riley Motorsports – Team AMG Ben Keating1:18.073+9.61433
34GTD28 Alegra Motorsports Michael de Quesada1:18.085+9.62634
35GTD54 CORE Autosport Jon Bennett1:19.220+10.761361
36GTD15 3GT RacingDid Not Participate352
Sources:[25][26]
  • 1 The No. 54 CORE Autosport entry was moved to the back of the GTD field entry was moved to the back of the GTD field as per Article 43.6 of the Sporting regulations (Change of starting tires).[21]
  • 2 The No. 15 3GT Racing entry was moved to the back of the GTD field as per Article 43.5 of the Sporting regulations (Change of starting driver).[21]

Race

Post-race

The result kept Jordan Taylor and Ricky Taylor atop the Prototype Drivers' Championship with 226 points, 19 points ahead of fifth-place finishers Barbosa and Fittipaldi.[27] In the PC Drivers' Championship, French and O'Ward extended their points lead to thirty-two points over Yount.[27] In the GTLM Drivers' Championship, Auberlen and Sims advanced from third to second.[27] The result kept Balzan and Nielsen atop the GTD Drivers' Championship while Aschenbach and Davis advanced from seventh to fifth.[27] Cadillac, and Chevrolet continued to top their respective Manufacturers' Championships. Ferrari took the lead of the GTD Manufacturers' Championship while Wayne Taylor Racing, Performance Tech Motorsports, Corvette Racing, and Scuderia Corsa kept their respective advantages in the Teams' Championships with five rounds left in the season.[27]

Results

Class winners are denoted in bold and ‡.

Final race classification
PosClassNo.TeamDriversChassisTireLapsTime/Retired
Engine
1P31 Whelen Engineering Racing Dane Cameron
Eric Curran
Cadillac DPi-V.RC1222:41:14.508‡
Cadillac 6.2 L V8
2P85 JDC-Miller MotorSports Mikhail Goikhberg
Stephen Simpson
Oreca 07C122+8.295
Gibson GK428 4.2 L V8
3P2 Tequila Patrón ESM Scott Sharp
Ryan Dalziel
Nissan Onroak DPiC122+12.420
Nissan VR38DETT 3.8 L Turbo V6
4P55 Mazda Motorsports Tristan Nunez
Jonathan Bomarito
Mazda RT24-PC122+13.234
Mazda MZ-2.0T 2.0 L Turbo I4
5P70 Mazda Motorsports Tom Long
Joel Miller
Mazda RT24-PC122+14.716
Mazda MZ-2.0T 2.0 L Turbo I4
6P5 Mustang Sampling Racing João Barbosa
Christian Fittipaldi
Cadillac DPi-V.RC122+21.083
Cadillac 6.2 L V8
7P10 Wayne Taylor Racing Ricky Taylor
Jordan Taylor
Cadillac DPi-V.RC120+2 Laps
Cadillac 6.2 L V8
8PC38 Performance Tech Motorsports James French
Patricio O'Ward
Oreca FLM09C117+5 Laps‡
Chevrolet 6.2 L V8
9GTLM25 BMW Team RLL Bill Auberlen
Alexander Sims
BMW M6 GTLMM117+5 Laps‡
BMW 4.4 L Turbo V8
10GTLM24 BMW Team RLL John Edwards
Martin Tomczyk
BMW M6 GTLMM117+5 Laps
BMW 4.4 L Turbo V8
11GTLM67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ryan Briscoe
Richard Westbrook
Ford GTM117+5 Laps
Ford EcoBoost 3.5 L Twin-turbo V6
12GTLM3 Corvette Racing Jan Magnussen
Antonio García
Chevrolet Corvette C7.RM117+5 Laps
Chevrolet LT5.5 5.5 L V8
13GTLM66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Dirk Müller
Joey Hand
Ford GTM117+5 Laps
Ford EcoBoost 3.5 L Twin-turbo V6
14GTLM912 Porsche GT Team Gianmaria Bruni
Laurens Vanthoor
Porsche 911 RSRM117+5 Laps
Porsche 4.0 L Flat-6
15P52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports Nicholas Boulle
David Ostella
Ligier JS P217C116Crash
Gibson GK428 4.2 L V8
16PC20 BAR1 Motorsports Don Yount
Ryan Lewis
Oreca FLM09C116+6 Laps
Chevrolet 6.2 L V8
17GTD57 Stevenson Motorsports Andrew Davis
Lawson Aschenbach
Audi R8 LMSC114+8 Laps‡
Audi 5.2L V10
18GTD93 Michael Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Andy Lally
Katherine Legge
Acura NSX GT3C114+8 Laps
Acura 3.5 L Turbo V6
19GTD63 Scuderia Corsa Christina Nielsen
Alessandro Balzan
Ferrari 488 GT3C114+8 Laps
Ferrari F154CB 3.9 L Turbo V8
20GTD96 Turner Motorsport Jens Klingmann
Bret Curtis
BMW M6 GT3C114+8 Laps
BMW 4.4L Turbo V8
21GTD14 3GT Racing Scott Pruett
Sage Karam
Lexus RC F GT3C114+8 Laps
Lexus 5.0L V8
22GTD16 Change Racing Corey Lewis
Jeroen Mul
Lamborghini Huracán GT3C114+8 Laps
Lamborghini 5.2 L V10
23GTD33 Riley Motorsports – Team AMG Jeroen Bleekemolen
Ben Keating
Mercedes-AMG GT3C114+8 Laps
Mercedes AMG M159 6.2 L V8
24GTD48 Paul Miller Racing Bryan Sellers
Madison Snow
Lamborghini Huracán GT3C113+9 Laps
Lamborghini 5.2 L V10
25GTD73 Park Place Motorsports Jörg Bergmeister
Patrick Lindsey
Porsche 911 GT3 RC113+9 Laps
Porsche 4.0 L Flat-6
26GTD86 Michael Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Jeff Segal
Oswaldo Negri Jr.
Acura NSX GT3C113+9 Laps
Acura 3.5 L Turbo V6
27GTD50 Riley Motorsports – WeatherTech Racing Cooper MacNeil
Gunnar Jeannette
Mercedes-AMG GT3C113+9 Laps
Mercedes AMG M159 6.2 L V8
28PC26 BAR1 Motorsports Garett Grist
James Vance
Oreca FLM09C113+9 Laps
Chevrolet 6.2 L V8
29GTD15 3GT Racing Robert Alon
Jack Hawksworth
Lexus RC F GT3C63+10 Laps
Lexus 5.0L V8
30GTD75 SunEnergy1 Racing Tristan Vautier
Kenny Habul
Mercedes-AMG GT3C112+10 Laps
Mercedes AMG M159 6.2 L V8
31GTD54 CORE Autosport Jon Bennett
Colin Braun
Porsche 911 GT3 RC112+10 Laps
Porsche 4.0 L Flat-6
32GTD28 Alegra Motorsports Michael de Quesada
Daniel Morad
Porsche 911 GT3 RC112+10 Laps
Porsche 4.0 L Flat-6
33GTLM911 Porsche GT Team Patrick Pilet
Dirk Werner
Porsche 911 RSRM109+13 Laps
Porsche 4.0 L Flat-6
34

DNF

GTLM4 Corvette Racing Oliver Gavin
Tommy Milner
Chevrolet Corvette C7.RM102Crash
Chevrolet LT5.5 5.5 L V8
35

DNF

P22 Tequila Patrón ESM Johannes van Overbeek
Pipo Derani
Nissan Onroak DPiC89Fire
Nissan VR38DETT 3.8 L Turbo V6
36

DNF

P90 VisitFlorida Racing Marc Goossens
Renger van der Zande
Riley Mk. 30C35Electrical
Gibson GK428 4.2 L V8
Sources:[28][29]
Tyre manufacturers
Key
SymbolTyre manufacturer
CContinental
MMichelin

Standings after the race

  • Note: Only the top five positions are included for all sets of standings.
PC Teams' Championship standings[27]
Pos.+/–TeamPoints
1 #38 Performance Tech Motorsports216
2 #26 BAR1 Motorsports185
3 #20 BAR1 Motorsports182
4 #8 Starworks Motorsport58
5 #88 Starworks Motorsport28


GTLM Teams' Championship standings[27]
Pos.+/–TeamPoints
1 #3 Corvette Racing182
2 1 #25 BMW Team RLL179
3 1 #66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing172
4 #67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing169
5 #911 Porsche GT Team159
GTD Teams' Championship standings[27]
Pos.+/–TeamPoints
1 #63 Scuderia Corsa203
2 #33 Riley Motorsports Team AMG195
3 #93 Michael Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian179
4 2 #96 Turner Motorsport168
5 2 #57 Stevenson Motorsports166

  • Note: Only the top five positions are included for all sets of standings.
GTLM Manufacturers' Championship standings[27]
Pos.+/–ManufacturerPoints
1 Chevrolet193
2 Ford191
3 BMW184
4 Porsche174
5 Ferrari112
GTD Manufacturers' Championship standing[27]
Pos.+/–ManufacturerPoints
1 1 Ferrari212
2 1 Mercedes-AMG211
3 Acura204
4 3 Audi192
5 1 Porsche190

  • Note: Only the top five positions are included for all sets of standings.

References

IMSA SportsCar Championship
Previous race:
6 Hours of The Glen
2017 seasonNext race:
Northeast Grand Prix