Frenchman Scores Redemptive LMP2 Win
By John Oreovicz
BOWMANVILLE, Ontario – For Tom Dillmann, Jeremy Clarke and Inter Europol Competition, a win at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Sunday’s Chevrolet Grand Prix helped add a positive memory to its CTMP memory bank after a tough 2025 ending.
This race is both the only Canadian round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and also the only one that highlights the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) full-season competitors in a headlining role.
In 2024, Dillmann teamed with Nick Boulle to take the overall and LMP2 class win at the daunting road course located just northeast of the Greater Toronto Area in a car entered by Inter Europol with PR1/Mathiasen. It set the pair on the path to win that year’s IMSA LMP2 championship.
But last year, Dillmann was leading late in the race when a mechanical issue caused a high-speed accident that left the Frenchman with two fractured vertebrae – from which he quickly recovered.
This year’s running of the 2-hour, 40-minute IMSA sprint race that again featured LMP2 as the headline class provided the Inter Europol team with a much happier memory.
Clarke set a new LMP2 lap record, eclipsing a mark that stood for seven years, en route to the Motul Pole Award.
Then once Dillmann took over the No. 43 ORECA LMP2 07, he completed a mix of great passes and smart strategy to cross the line 9.796 seconds ahead of Alex Quinn in the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA he shared with George Kurtz.
Dillmann missed just one WeatherTech Championship race after the back-breaking trip to CTMP in 2025, the following round at Road America. Since then, he’s racked up three second-place IMSA finishes (at the ’25 TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Motul Petit Le Mans and the 2026 Rolex 24 At Daytona International Speedway), as well as the LMP2 class win at June’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.
All those wins came for the multi-faceted Inter Europol organization, which has now achieved 2026 race wins in IMSA, Asian Le Mans, European Le Mans, and FIA World Endurance Championship competition.
But Sunday’s triumph was particularly special.
“Going into the weekend, it didn’t change anything for me; I always want to win,” Dillmann said. “But now after the fact, I can see it’s a cool story.
“When you win Le Mans, the season is already a success,” he added after his third career WeatherTech Championship race win. “But I really wanted a great (result) for Jeremy and for the team here in the U.S. We had a good Daytona, but since then, things didn’t go our way.
“There was quite a bit of pressure to get a good result today, and I’m really happy we managed to get a win and are back in the championship fight.”
Quinn and Kurtz took over the lead of the LMP2 standings after four of seven races, but Clarke and Dillmann moved from fourth to second, 70 points back. All four rounds of the championship have featured a different winner.
Clarke ran the first stint at CTMP, leading the opening 34 laps and able to control the race from the front. The Inter Europol car clearly had the pace, but the potential always exists in WeatherTech Championship races for a surprise result, especially if there is a late-race caution.
This year’s Chevrolet Grand Prix ran fairly clean for most of the race, with only a pair of brief safety car periods in the first hour.
The timing of the cautions didn’t work in Inter Europol’s favor, but Dillmann took over shortly thereafter and was able to pass Quinn on track cleanly for the lead. The No. 43 car was cleanly out front for the final hour, turning in a superior final pit stop to lead 93 of the 127 laps completed.
“We executed everything perfectly,” said Clarke, who now owns two IMSA race wins in 10 starts. “Qualifying on pole yesterday built a lot of confidence, and I had a great start and a great first stint to maintain my fuel target and the traffic behind.
“A couple teams went off strategy, and we wanted to make sure we kept on top of that,” he continued. “But Tom had everything under control and was able to do his thing.”
“The team is always very strong here,” Dillmann added. “Today they did a perfect job. I knew passing Alex would be a tough task, but I managed to do it, and we had the pace to bring it home.”
Quinn and Kurtz admitted they were second best on a day when Inter Europol had the legs on the field.
“Jeremy and Tom did a great job, so congrats to them,” Kurtz said. “When you look at this race, it’s high commitment and a lot of things can go wrong. To come out with second place and the points lead, we did exactly what we needed to do. The car was awesome and we couldn’t be happier coming out of here with the points lead.”
PJ Hyett and Dane Cameron finished third in the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA LMP2 07 and also lie third in the championship, 81 points behind Quinn and Kurtz.
All four classes of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will be back in action July 30 – August 2 for the Motul SportsCar Grand Prix at Road America near Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. The six-hour race also will be the fourth of the season’s five IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup races.