| AO in LMP2, DragonSpeed in GTD PRO, WTR in GTD All Claim First Wins in New IMSA Classes July 13, 2025By Tony DiZinnoIMSA Wire Service |
| Unofficial Results BOWMANVILLE, Ontario – Sunday’s Chevrolet Grand Prix from Canadian Tire Motorsport Park featured a great volume of drama with the three IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship classes in action. All three class winners claimed their first IMSA wins in new classes, having all triumphed in other WeatherTech Championship classes previously in their IMSA tenures. Ultimately, the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA LMP2 07 of PJ Hyett and Dane Cameron triumphed overall and in the headlining Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class following the two-hour, 40-minute race. From the Motul Pole Award, Hyett controlled the pace in his stint aboard “Spike,” AO’s purple dragon-liveried ORECA, as he built a lead nearing 15 seconds at times. Dane Cameron appeared poised to carry that opening stint momentum, but Cameron’s lead position went away when Tom Dillmann undercut him in his No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA on the final pit stop. That lead change came after Dillmann had made a couple passes on track for second in the same lap to get around first Benjamin Pedersen, then Tom Blomqvist in a pair of other ORECAs. That put him into second and gave his Inter Europol team a shot to try to gain track position on AO by pitting early with 44 minutes to go, kicking off the final cycle and then forcing all other competitors to respond. A full-course caution with just over half an hour remaining closed the field, forcing Dillmann to defend against Cameron out front. Despite a great restart, Dillmann’s defense was short-lived as he went off course into Turn 3 into the tire barriers with 15 minutes remaining to bring out another full-course caution. That cost the Frenchman and co-driver Jeremy Clarke their potential second IMSA win of the season and Dillmann’s would-have-been second straight win at CTMP. Cameron took the lead following the incident, but due to extricating the No. 43 car and repairing the barriers, the race finished under full-course caution conditions. The No. 22 United Autosports USA ORECA of Blomqvist and Daniel Goldburg was second ahead of Riley’s No. 74 ORECA of Gar Robinson and Felipe Fraga. AO Racing has its first IMSA LMP2 win, fresh on the heels of winning the LMP2 Pro/Am class with Cameron, Hyett and Louis Deletraz in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June. AO has also won in both Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) and Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) classes this year. The two GT classes came down to strategy, with DragonSpeed’s No. 81 Ferrari 296 GT3 and Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports’ No. 4 Corvette Z06 GT3.R (in GTD PRO) and Wayne Taylor Racing’s No. 45 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 (GTD) gambling on longer final stints well north of 70 minutes to make it home to the finish, whereas the rest of the GTD PRO and GTD cars all made later final stops to ensure their clean run to the checkered flag. Ultimately the gamble worked because of the two late cautions, the first for the No. 78 car off course with just over half an hour remaining and the second for the No. 43 LMP2 leader in the wall with 15 minutes to go. For both DragonSpeed and WTR, it’s their first wins in their respective categories of GTD PRO and GTD although they’ve won in other prototype classes before. In GTD PRO, Albert Costa and Giacomo Altoe shared the winning No. 81 DragonSpeed Ferrari, with the No. 4 Corvette of Nicky Catsburg and Tommy Milner second and the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Laurin Heinrich and Klaus Bachler in third. In GTD, Trent Hindman and Danny Formal co-drove the winning No. 45 WTR Lamborghini with the championship-leading No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Philip Ellis and Russell Ward second ahead of the polesitting No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 of Parker Thompson and Jack Hawksworth. |
