Garcia, Ellis Top IMSA’s Two GT Classes at CTMP
By John Oreovicz
BOWMANVILLE, Ontario – More than three years have passed since Ricky Taylor last drove a Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class car in any series, but the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship star showed Friday that he hasn’t forgotten how to pedal one.
Taylor, making a guest appearance for Bryan Herta Autosport with PR1/Mathiasen in the No. 52 ORECA LMP2 07 co-driven by Misha Goikhberg, paced the opening practice session for the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. He lapped the famously fast 2.459-mile road course northeast of the Greater Toronto Area in 1 minute, 8.080 seconds (130.029 miles per hour), besting the 1:08.178 (129.842 mph) effort posted by Sebastian Alvarez in the No. 8 ORECA LMP2 07 prepared by Tower Motorsports.
“Like anything, it takes a little while for that muscle memory to come back and I’ve never driven an LMP2 car here,” Taylor said. “We just tested here, so it’s fresh for us and surely people are going to be improving, so I’m not overly confident, but I think if we have a smooth race without issues, I think we have a chance.
“The team isn’t getting ahead of ourselves, but I’ve been so impressed by Misha – he’s been flying,” he added. “The pressure is on me to hold up my end of the bargain.”
Taylor has raced in the top prototype class of the WeatherTech Championship since the unification of American sports car racing in 2014 (and for several years prior to that in GRAND-AM). But he has made seven LMP2 class starts in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in that timespan, where LMP2 cars operate under different aerodynamic restrictions and using a different brand of tire than the Michelins that are standard in IMSA.
The WeatherTech Championship’s LMP2 lineup is slightly different than usual this weekend due to a schedule conflict with the FIA World Endurance Championship round at Interlagos, Brazil. With Goikhberg’s full-season teammate Harry Tincknell and third driver Parker Thompson both racing in Brazil, Taylor is available to race at CTMP because the Chevrolet Grand Prix is headlined by LMP2, accompanied by IMSA’s production-based Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) and GTD PRO classes.
The Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class, where Taylor typically shares the No. 10 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R with Filipe Albuquerque, returns to action July 30-August 2 at the Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix.
Both Taylor and Alvarez lapped CTMP faster on Friday than the lap record established by Matt McMurry in 2019, when IMSA created greater separation between LMP2 and the WeatherTech Championship’s top prototype class.
“The car feels so nice, like the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) cars we raced here up through 2022,” Taylor said. “It’s even better in some places – this track really lets these cars perform at their best, with all the high-speed corners. It’s really cool.”
Philip Ellis set the pace for the GT classes with an early lap timed at 1:15.860 (116.693 mph) in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the GTD class. That was 0.323 second quicker than Albert Costa’s 1:16.183 (116.198 mph) effort in the No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO.
No fewer than five GTD PRO entries posted lap times in between the GTD class leaders, led by Antonio Garcia in the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R at 1:15.877 (116.667 mph). Ben Barnicoat, coming off a class win in the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3, was next up at 1:15.906 (116.622 mph).
Friday’s 90-minute practice session was twice interrupted by minor incidents that caused red flags. Both occurred at Turn 5 and involved GTD class runners; Lorenzo Patrese slid the No. 34 Conquest Ferrari into the tire wall just prior to the halfway point, while Callum Ilott caused the session to end about 10 minutes early when he plowed the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) into the banded tires much harder, causing more significant damage. Both entries will lose their fastest qualifying lap.
“I would say that was probably just getting too much confidence too quickly,” Patrese said. “A small mistake with a bit of a bigger outcome. With the compression you have on the bumps there, it can go wrong quite easily, but luckily the damage was small, and I was able to get a few more laps in the session to get some confidence back.”
WeatherTech Championship competitors will have 90 more minutes of practice Saturday morning prior to qualifying by class in the afternoon. The Chevrolet Grand Prix feature event takes place from 2:10-4:50 p.m. Sunday, July 12, with streaming available on Peacock domestically and via the official IMSA YouTube channel and IMSA.TV outside the United States.