The Canadian Team Has Risen Quickly Following Its IMSA Return Last Year
March 2, 2023
By Bryce Kelly
IMSA Wire Service
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – AWA’s Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) class win in the Rolex 24 At Daytona surprised many … including some of the team’s drivers. But the victory was the culmination of quite the rise in endurance racing for the Canadian team, based just northwest of Toronto. The four-driver lineup of Nico Varrone, Thomas Merrill, Anthony Mantella and Wayne Boyd finished 15th overall in the Rolex 24 and 12 laps ahead of the second-place LMP3 car. “I consider myself a real gentleman driver; I do my best,” Mantella said after winning in his Rolex 24 debut. “But for me to win the 24 Hours of Daytona, all the planets need to align. We worked really hard; everybody did their job.” A racer since he was a teenager in Canada, Mantella is 52 and said he feels like he’s 25. But for the longest time, he couldn’t get a break. And he needed a breakthrough.
“I raced everything under the sun but could not figure out how to race cars,” he said. That changed when Mantella met Greg Pootmans, acquired a Porsche Cup car from England and started racing it in 2012. He then got an opportunity from Canadian racing scion Terry Dale to race in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge. Mantella and Andrew Wojteczko started Mantella Autosport in 2014, with Wojteczko overseeing the business and the engineering, and Mantella the driving. After a hiatus from racing from 2017-21, Mantella bought an LMP3 in 2022 and wanted to go straight into the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. But Wojteczko said Mantella needed to walk before he could run, so Mantella and AWA began in the IMSA Prototype Challenge development series featuring only LMP3 machinery. “The constant thing about Andrew and myself was every time I don’t listen to Andrew, I go backward,” Mantella said. “Every time I listen to Andrew, as tough as it is, I go forward. Getting into IPC and the lower competition rate really got me where I needed to be from easy things like controls in the car, relearning flags and different things. That prepared me for WeatherTech.” AWA did enter an LMP3 for the full 2022 WeatherTech Championship season that finished sixth in points, but Mantella didn’t race in that car. He did compete in three WeatherTech Championship LMP3 races last year – the first two for Forty7 Motorsports and the last in a second AWA entry – alongside his four Prototype Challenge races.
Co-driver Boyd, with prototype experience driving for United Autosports in Europe since 2016, was approached by Matthew Bell to race along with Mantella at Watkins Glen last year. “They run a very professional team,” Boyd said. “For me, their preparation is very impressive. They dot their i’s and cross their t’s in every aspect.” Chemistry that developed away from the track was a big part of AWA’s success at the Rolex 24. Mantella said he met the other three drivers at Daytona, and they went to dinner. “It was like we knew each other forever,” Mantella said. “We gelled instantly, and there was an instant respect among drivers. There was no ego at all.” That instant bond gave the team, crew and drivers confidence that the No. 17 AWA Duqueine D08 can fight for more wins the rest of the season. AWA’s second Rolex 24 entry, the No. 13 Duqueine, was among the many LMP3 competitors that encountered issues, but they still finished fourth with Bell, Orey Fidani, Lars Kern and Moritz Kranz behind the wheel. Both AWA entries are expected to race again in two weeks at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, but Boyd still hasn’t gotten over the magnitude of the Daytona achievement. “It is such a big race,” Boyd said. “It’s obviously one of the biggest races in the world. For me, it was a massive milestone in my career, but also it was a big thing for the team. Especially only stepping up into IMSA last year, and then to run two cars this year and to win Daytona is a pretty amazing achievement for them.” |
