Tudor United SportsCar Championship: Jordan Taylor wins in Canada

After an incident free qualifying session, the Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix was won by Wayne Taylor Racing and Jordan Taylor. In PC class it was CORE Motorsport and Colin Braun, while GTLM was won by Porsche and Nick Tandy. The race started at noon with car #11 driven by Chris Cumming spinning and damaging the front splitter. Ricky Taylor kept his lead on the start, whereas James French was the first in PC class. Le Mans winner Nick Tandy had a great start and was in the lead in his Porsche in GTLM class. Cumming returned to the race with three laps down. All three class leaders were gradually increasing their gaps in the first twenty minutes of the race while GTLM class saw a good battle for fifth between Jan Magnussen in a Corvette C7.R and Bryan Sellers as the defender. At one point, Sellers tried overtaking Pierre Kaffer, but failed when DeltaWing went between them, expanding the gap again.

With around 2 hours and 15 minutes to go, John Falb spun his PC class car right in front of the race leaders, but luckily no contacts or collisions occurred. On the other hand, Katherine Hegge brushed against a GTLM class Porsche driven by Bergmeister which enabled Oliver Gavin to advance. In the meantime, the gap in Prototype class was drastically shortened and top three cars started their hard battle for the leading position. Christian Fittipaldi managed to overtake Ricky Taylor and get to the lead, pulling his gap immediately. The first caution flag went up with two hours to go for Mikhail Goikhberg who spun his car, as well as PC leader James French. Teams used the opportunity to go to the pits and switch tires and drivers. Barbosa replaced Fittipaldi and Taylor was replaced by Dane Cameron who exited the track on first in an exciting pit race. But that battle was overshadowed by GTLM multi car pit race which ended with Dirk Werner in the lead.

With 1:50 to go, the race restarted and Van Der Zande went off track, but was able to return to the track. Scott Pruett suffered a drive through penalty for entering a closed pit and was pushed back to ninth back overall, eighth in Prototype class. In GTLM class, it was Patrick Pilet who replaced Nick Tandy and regained the lead from the BMW, while in PC, John Falb was in the lead. Mike Guasch had to make a unscheduled pit stop because of a fluid leak. With 1:30 to go, Ozz Negri Jr. was leading the race when Wayne Taylor Racing’s Prototype car pitted off-cycle, while Jon Bennett and Patrick Pilet were in the lead in PC and GTLM. With 1:17 to go, Barbosa got really close to Negri, but the leader managed to hold the attacker off and expand the gap again.

The pit window opened with 1:10 to go and Joao Barbosa was the first to go, and was followed by other Prototype cars, including the race leader. After the cars pitted, Michael Valiante emerged as the leader, but as he pitted a bit later, Dane Cameron returned to the first position. With an hour to go, Mikhail Goikhberg was leading in PC class, while in GTLM class, Patrick Pilet was holding off Dirk Werner who was less than a second away. In an exciting pit drag race, Porsche defended the position from the BMW team and Nick Tandy returned to the 911 RSR, soon regaining the leading position as the pit cycle ended in the class. In P class, Joao Barbosa regained the lead, but was again overtaken by Dane Cameron and in PC, Colin Braun had a stable lead by almost a minute over Van Der Zande.

With around 26 minutes to go, Van Der Zande limped into the pits with serious rear brake issues and had to retire from the race. The last fifteen minutes saw Prototype cars battling for the podium as Jordan Taylor overtook Negri Jr. With 11 minutes to go, Joao Barbosa pitted from second and returned on fifth. With nine minutes to go, Cameron and Taylor took advantage of the clear track. After completing the lap in full throttle, Cameron entered the pits for a tire change and a refuel. That enabled Jordan Taylor to overtake Cameron and take the first position in the final minutes of the race. Taylor managed to hold onto his position to win the race in an extremely tight finish made more exciting by upcoming traffic which brought the cars close to each other. Fortunately for Taylor, Mazda prototype didn’t block his path in the last corners and he crossed the finish line with Cameron right in his tail. Colin Braun won easily in Prototype Challenge class, while Nick Tandy dominated the race in GT LeMans.