LMP2 Spotlight; Corvette Trying to Rebound; Wickens’ Return
By David Phillips
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship heads north for its annual visit to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP) and the Chevrolet Grand Prix. One of North America’s most iconic, natural terrain road courses has a roll call of winners including some of the greatest drivers, teams and marques of the past 65 years.
With its dramatic elevation changes and succession of high speed, high commitment turns, with the tricky double apex Moss Corner hairpin for good measure, CTMP showcases the talents of the WeatherTech Championship’s competitors and the performance of its exotic prototypes and GTs.
LMP2’s Spotlight and Title Battle
With Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) on holiday, the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) category is in the spotlight this weekend. That the combination of the ORECA LMP2 07’s nimble handling, oodles of downforce and potent Gibson V8 is perfectly suited to the roller coaster ride of swoops and curves of CTMP is a given. What’s far less certain is which teams and drivers will be able to maximize their ORECA’s performance and take the overall win on Sunday.
Certainly, AO Racing’s No. 99 ORECA is a potent contender with PJ Hyett and Dane Cameron aboard “Spike” the dragon, having won last year at CTMP and last race at the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen. But they’ll have to contend with the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA of George Kurtz and Alex Quinn, who have hardly missed a beat this year with class wins at both the Rolex 24 At Daytona and 24 Hours of Le Mans. Sebring winners United Autosports USA have two contenders with their No. 2 and No. 22 cars.
Inter Europol Competition led all LMP2 runners at Le Mans but seek their first IMSA win of 2026, despite two poles from Jeremy Clarke in the team’s No. 43 ORECA. Despite an injury sustained here last year, 2024 CTMP winner and LMP2 champion Tom Dillmann isn’t fueled with extra motivation.
“I go to any race and I want to win it,” he said. “It’s not because we had the issue last year that it changes. It’s the same points every race.
“The track is really great in an LMP2 car,” he added. “It’s super high speed, high commitment. It really suits the car well. It was a nice discovery in 2024 and we managed to win the race. Last year we had a really good race as well, taking the lead (and) leading until a few minutes to go until we had a failure. So, yeah, I expect we’ll be fighting for the win again this year.”
The No. 04 car leads the Nos. 22 and 99 cars by 55 points, with the No. 43 car fourth, 107 back. Notably, both CTMP winners in the LMP2 headliner have gone on to win the title the last two years.
Corvette Seeks GTD PRO Points Lead Again
Many an eye will also train on the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) competition given a fierce title race that sees the top three teams and their drivers separated by less than 100 points. Connor De Phillippi, Neil Verhagen and the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO sit atop the standings with 1,575 points thanks in large part to a win at Daytona and a second place at Watkins Glen. Hard on their heels is Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports’ double threat of the No. 3 and No. 4 Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs with 1,515 and 1,494 points, respectively.
Last year’s GTD PRO champs, Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims, won the first IMSA race for the Corvette Z06 GT3.R at CTMP in 2024 – the most recent of the team’s 13 wins at the Chevrolet Grand Prix. The Detroit winners this year hope to start fast on Friday to leapfrog back to the top.
“This isn’t a home race for us, but it feels like it should be,” Garcia said. “It’s a track that everyone on the team enjoys. We as drivers do, too. It’s a short lap but mostly because the speed is very high. All that means that track position here is very important, more than you’d think for a race that’s almost three hours. We’re hoping to be fast right away so we can work toward a Corvette that’s just as good over a stint as it is on a qualifying run. We have the experience here to do well, so let’s see if we can take advantage of that.”
After disappointing back-to-back results in Detroit and Watkins Glen for the sister No. 4 car, Tommy Milner is keen to see he and Nicky Catsburg recapture their early season points-leading form. They were second here last year courtesy of a strong strategic run.
“From the 4 car side, we need to clean some things up a little bit,” he explained. “We’ve had two races in a row where we haven’t had the best results, which isn’t the way to win a championship. We need to buckle down, make sure that we are doing everything right on all our sides. If we do that, then good things will happen.”
Go Canada!
The CTMP crowd will surely also have eyes for IMSA’s Canadian contingent, namely Windsor’s Roman De Angelis (who switches classes for this event to drive the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO with GTD points leader Dudu Barrichello), Etobicoke’s Orey Fidani in 13 Autosport’s No. 13 Corvette and Guelph’s Robert Wickens in the No. 36 DXDT Corvette, both in the GTD category as well. That’s in addition to Pfaff Motorsports, engineering powerhouse Multimatic and five Bronze-rated Canadian drivers in LMP2.
A calamitous fire en route to the StubHub Monterey SportsCar Championship destroyed DXDT Racing’s transporter and most of their ancillary equipment, not to mention the Corvette specifically tailored to Wickens’ Bosch hand control system. But the team returned at Watkins Glen with its IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup lineup and finished 11th.
A two-time winner at CTMP in IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge, Wickens is hoping for more good things this weekend given that when he last drove for DXDT, he won the pole and finished sixth at Long Beach co-driving with Mason Filippi.
“Last year was DXDT’s first year in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship,” he explained. “At all these tracks, although we had engineering support from GM and Pratt Miller, we were learning everything new for ourselves. You always want to learn yourself instead of learning from others.
“So already I feel like this year the team’s been much stronger every race we’ve come back to. And I think CTMP is going to be no different. For me as a driver, I was learning each track with my Bosch electronic braking system in the Corvette. And so now, with a year of experience at these tracks, my first practice feels like a continuation from how I finished the year before instead of kind of learning everything all through the first two practice sessions.
“We’re feeling good,” he added. “It’s been a lot of work from the team to get ready. They ran the six-hour at The Glen with a new car, a different transporter, different pit equipment and everything else that goes into making this circus work. For me, having not driven since Long Beach, I’m itching to get back at it for my home race.”
Pfaff’s GTD PRO effort comes as the team continues to learn and grow with its new No. 9 Lamborghini Temerario GT3 still in its signature plaid livery.
The 13 Autosport team, based in Mississauga, has starred on occasion this year but more often than not seen results elude them late in races. It’s an important weekend for Fidani and Matt Bell in the team’s pursuit of Fidani’s third straight Bob Akin Award, where he holds a 30-point lead over Inception Racing’s Brendan Iribe.
If any of the five Bronze-rated Canadians win in LMP2, it’d mark their first at CTMP. Phil Fayer, John Farano, Tobi Lutke, Misha Goikhberg and Chris Cumming will all qualify and start their ORECAs in that pursuit.
Indeed, the most recent Canadian to win in the WeatherTech Championship at CTMP is De Angelis, who scored his second of two GTD wins here in 2024 and is back in a cameo appearance this weekend.
If you can’t make it to CTMP, you can see the action on Peacock, IMSA.tv and YouTube throughout the weekend including Sunday’s race beginning at 2:05 p.m. ET.