Canadian Team Returns with Favored Plaid Livery for Home Race
By Mark Robinson
BOWMANVILLE, Ontario – It was already going to be a big weekend for Pfaff Motorsports, racing on its home track in front of hundreds of team guests and Canadian fans at the Chevrolet Grand Prix. A pending milestone makes it even grander.
Sunday’s race will be the 50th for Pfaff in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition, and the first 49 have been most impressive. In that span, Pfaff has taken home 12 race wins, 26 podium finishes and two class season championships.
Not bad for the team that Pfaff general manager Steve Bortolotti labeled “the little engine that could from Canada.”
In recognition of the landmark start this weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, Pfaff is reprising the red-and-black plaid livery that so many fans embraced from the team’s beginnings. Oliver Jarvis and Marvin Kirchhoefer will drive the No. 9 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo whose look resembles Canadian lumberjack flannel.
“It’s a huge weekend for us,” Bortolotti said.
Pfaff Motorsports, part of the Pfaff Automotive group that includes 15 car dealerships across Canada and an aftermarket performance division, made its WeatherTech Championship debut in 2019 with immediate results. Fielding a Porsche 911 GT3 R, Pfaff won twice and finished third in the GT Daytona (GTD) team standings. Series rookie and Canadian Zacharie Robichon also placed third in the driver standings.
The global pandemic limited the team to competing in just two races in 2020, but Bortolotti and team management endeavored to keep the team together. They offered to continue paying crew members through the year or rehiring them the following year if they went to work for another team in 2020. That grand gesture went a long way in retaining staff continuity as the team was about to take off.
“We haven’t been perfect on turnover – nobody is,” Bortolotti said. “But I definitely would say the majority of the team, if you looked at a photo from 2019 and a photo now, you’d see a lot of the same faces.”
In 2021, Robichon and Laurens Vanthoor teamed to win four races and the GTD championship. The next season, Pfaff joined the new GT Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class and dominated. Behind Porsche factory drivers Mathieu Jaminet and Matt Campbell, the No. 9 won five times in 10 races and drove away with the class title. It was the culmination of a five-year plan Bortolotti had delivered to team owner Chris Pfaff in late 2016, charting the course ahead.
“I made this plan about how we want to be in IMSA,” Bortolotti recalled, “but had this goal to be … running against the factories as the little engine that could from Canada. It’s cool that we’ve kind of accomplished everything on that five-year plan.”
The 2023 season saw Vanthoor, Klaus Bachler and Patrick Pilet win the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring and the No. 9 finish fourth in the GTD PRO standings. This year came with the seismic move from Porsche to McLaren, which brought with it development growing pains. But following a pair of second-place finishes in the last three races, optimism is strong once more at Pfaff.
When asked what it would mean to get that first win of the season on Sunday, with a new manufacturer partner, in front of 400-plus Pfaff teammates and family, Bortolotti paused.
“It would be awesome,” he finally said. “Having been fortunate enough when we won (at CTMP) in ’22, you don’t realize how much it means to win at home when your family is there and that sort of stuff. Not everyone gets a home track race, so being able to win it just makes it that much more special.”
Deletraz Sets Pace in Opening WeatherTech Championship Practice
Opening practice for the Chevrolet Grand Prix saw a pair of Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) regulars lead the way – in the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class. With the GTP class not racing at CTMP, four full-season drivers worked their way into LMP2 lineups for the weekend and two – Louis Deletraz and Renger van der Zande – were quickest on Friday.
Deletraz topped the speed chart with a lap of 1 minute, 7.895 seconds (130.383 mph) in the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA LMP2 07 he’s sharing with PJ Hyett this weekend. Deletraz was a scant 0.003 seconds better than van der Zande in the No. 8 Tower Motorsports ORECA he’s in this weekend with John Farano.
Making his first visit to CTMP (other than recent LMP2 testing), Deletraz said going fast on the high-speed, 2.459-mile, 10-turn circuit is all about confidence.
“Turn 1 is flat, Turn 2 is almost flat – could be, might not be, we’ll see,” he said with a chuckle. “Turn 3 is definitely for me the toughest corner on this track because it’s blind. I think Turn 3 is one of those where you can make a lot of lap time, but overall if you have confidence, you’re going to gain half a tenths everywhere, and at the end of a lap, three or four tenths on this track is a lot.
“Just high-speed confidence and I really love that in the P2; it’s such a great car for the high-speed corners. For sure it’s a good start for us.”
Alexander Sims was fastest among the GT cars, turning a lap in the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R at 1:15.696 (116.946 mph) to head up the GT Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class. Robby Foley led GT Daytona (GTD) with a lap of 1:16.024 (116.422 mph) in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3, fourth quickest among GT cars.
A second practice starts at 10:35 a.m. ET Saturday, with qualifying at 4 that afternoon. The two-hour, 40-minute race airs live Sunday on USA Network and Peacock beginning at 11 a.m.
Lazare, Taylor Top Michelin Pilot Challenge Practices
Practice 1 Results | Practice 2 Results
The IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge held a pair of 60-minute practices on Friday, ahead of the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park 120 race on Saturday. Jesse Lazare led the Grand Sport (GS) class with a lap of 1:22.319 (107.537 mph) in the No. 69 Motorsports In Action McLaren Artura GT4. Mikey Taylor was fastest in the Touring Car (TCR) class at 1:23.181 (106.423 mph) in the No. 17 Unitronic/JDC-Miller MotorSports Audi RS3 LM2 TCR. Michelin Pilot Challenge qualifying is set for 8 a.m. Saturday, with the two-hour race to follow at 1:25 p.m. (live on Peacock in the U.S.; IMSA.tv and youtube.com/IMSAOfficial globally).
Aghakhani, Lazare Earn Pole Positions for VP Racing Challenge Race 1
Steven Aghakhani and Jesse Lazare captured the pole position in their respective classes for the first IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge race of the CTMP weekend. Aghakhani was tops overall and in Le Mans Prototype 3 (P3) with his lap of 1:12.299 (122.441 mph) in the No. 6 MLT Motorsports Ligier JS P320. Lazare earned the Grand Sport X (GSX) pole with his 1:22.651 lap (107.105 mph) in the No. 21 Motorsports In Action McLaren Artura GT4. Saturday’s race starts at 8:50 a.m. and streams live on Peacock and IMSA.tv.