Braun is quick to the CORE
IMSA SPORTSCAR MOSPORT PARK (CDN) JULY 8 ROUND 7/12
Despite having a dominant car at the dauntingly fast Mosport circuit last weekend, Texan Colin Braun led only eight of the 116 laps that comprised a thrilling seventh round of the IMSA Sportscar Championship. But they were the important ones.
Braun was quickest in each of the practice sessions, then qualified on pole ahead of Acura Team Penske’s Dane Cameron. For the second week in a row, however, the CORE Autosport team with its pro-am line-up elected to insert team principal Jon Bennett into its potent ORECA-GIBSON 07 for the opening stint, which, under IMSA regulations, required it to start from the back of the Prototype field.
Bennett did well to keep in touch with the pack until a fortuitously timed full-course caution allowed Braun to take over the controls shortly after Bennett had completed his mandatory minimum 30 minutes. Braun then proceeded to work his way steadily forward. He overtook Felipe Nasr’s Cadillac DPI for second place before powering past Jordan Taylor’s Cadillac on the Mario Andretti Straight mere moments before the caution lights flashed on again for the final time with a little over 10 minutes remaining. Braun took off at the restart to cement a well-earned first outright Prototype victory for both himself and Bennett.
“I’m just a business guy with a dream,” said an emotional Bennett.
“We knew we had a fast car,” added
Braun. “We had a great weekend at Watkins Glen [the previous round] and were able to make the car better and better.”
Taylor and Renger van der Zande drove impressively to lead for much of the distance before settling for second in a car that was far from the fastest in the field. Nasr and Eric Curran followed in third, edging out team-mates Filipe Albuquerque and Christian Fittipaldi to turn a one-point deficit into a one-point advantage in the title chase with just three Prototype races remaining.
Helio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor salvaged fifth place for Team Penske following an uncharacteristically difficult weekend that included a heavy crash for the Brazilian during practice on Friday and then a series of strategic miscues for Cameron (who led the first 35 laps and was the only driver to seriously challenge Braun’s superiority all weekend) and
Juan Pablo Montoya during the twohour-and-40-minute race.
Porsche seemed to have an edge on the habitually tight GTLM field but failed to press home its advantage. Instead Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook (Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT) parlayed strong pace, good fuel economy and a perfect strategy to finish almost five seconds ahead of the two Corvettes driven by
Jan Magnussen/antonio Garcia and Oliver Gavin/tommy Milner. The best Porsche could manage was fourth for polesitter Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet. The result enabled Westbrook/briscoe to assume the points lead.
Jeroen Bleekemolen and Ben Keating combined superbly to claim a narrow GTD victory aboard their Riley Motorsports Mercedes-amg GT3 over the 3GT Racing Lexus RC F GT3 of Dominik Baumann/kyle Marcelli.