Canadians Race on Two Continents - Struggle to find the podium

It was a tough weekend all 'round for Canadians on track from Germany to California. There were some promising runs that ended in a variety of ways whether it be from contact, penalties or strategy. In the end Canadians racing internationally would score on the podium in California and just miss in Germany.

Report from Europe:

First up is DTM from Hockenheim with Bruno Spengler (BMW) and Robert Wickens (Mercedes AMG). Both the Audis and BMWs were quick at Hockenheim while Mercedes AMG suffered. Gary Paffet was the top Mercedes qualifier and he stood eleventh. Canada's Robert Wickens was out in Q1 with along with four other Mercedes AMC C-Coupes and he would start 20th. Meanwhile, Bruno Spengler (Montreal QC) had a good run late in the session to put him on row two (P3) of the starting grid.

Race day was another story and it started fantastically for Wickens. Going on the option (soft) tire he was slicing through traffic like the proverbial hot knife through butter. In just eight laps he had rocketed from the P20 starting position all the way to P8 – at that point passing Spengler who had dropped from his third-place start. Wickens finally made his way to sixth and stayed there for a while – that is until the pit stops. While a lot of teams opted for the prime (hard) tire to start, they would now be going onto the options – arguably a much better (and faster) tire on the circuit. Wickens of course would have to switch to the primes. It did not go well after that. Sitting eighth after all the cars completed stops, his Mercedes AMG C Coupe proceeded to go backwards. The car was almost two seconds a lap slower on the prime tires and Wickens would end up P18. Regardless the final result, the young Canadian certainly impressed everyone and got himself plenty of air time.

As for Spengler, he drove his way back to a sixth-place finish earning him eight points on the day.

The next round for the DTM Championship is at Oschersleben May 17th & 18th. Live streaming of qualifying and races is available at http://www.dtm.com/en/tv/index.html and on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/DTMinternational

Also at Hockenheim this weekend, Nicolas Latifi (Toronto, ON) had a rough second outing in the F3 European Championship. After a strong opening weekend at Silverstone, the young driver finished out of the points two of three races in Germany. He has dropped to seventh (from fourth) in the standings but there are still twenty-seven races to go over nine race meetings so anything is possible.

Next stop Portugal where FIA World Rallycross Championship was on stage with Jacques Villeneuve in the Albatec Racing #25 Peugot 208. Both Albatec cars suffered fuel pressure problems in the morning sessions on day one and a blown tire scuttled Villeneuve's run in the afternoon leaving him fifteenth at the end of the day. The weekend went from bad to worse on day two when a water leak on Villeneuve's car left him off the grid for heat three and despite a good run in the next heart, it was not enough to bring the team any joy.

Villeneuve commented later, "Everything went wrong this weekend, but that's part of racing. I've been racing long enough to know that nine times out of ten you get hacked off, but then you have that one special day when it makes you forget about the other nine times. It's been a hard weekend for everyone, the car was late, we didn't have enough people working on the cars due to things outside of our control and the guys have had to do a couple of all nighters, so it's turned out to be a weekend more of an appetiser than the proper start to the season."

The next event in the series takes place at Lydden Hill Race Circuit, Wootton, Canterbury May 24th & 25th. Just and FYI, FIA World RallyCross Championship presented by Monster Energy is available to watch via live streaming at http://new.livestream.com/fiaworldrallycross/

North American Report

This past weekend pretty much kicked off the on-track action in Canada with kart races, time attack, slaloms and club races at various venues. It was a bit of a wet start here in Ontario and there were lots of Canadians on the podium (one would hope).

But the big races were all over on the west coast in the IMSA Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge and the TUDOR United Sports Car Championship. They were racing at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and as it was billed, there were nearly 200 cars in nine different races. The ones of interest to Canadian fans would be the Continental series with plenty of Canadian content including fourteen drivers (in nine cars) and three Canadian-based teams and the TUDOR Championship with Canadian drivers in all four classes. Continental qualified on Friday / race on Saturday while TUDOR qualified Sunday and then held two separate races on Sunday – one for the PC & GTD classes, the other for P & GTLM classes.

Continental kicked off with the following results in qualifying:

GS Class
P5 #7 MAX RIDDLE ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE

P6 #158 BILLY JOHNSON MULTIMATINC MUSTANG BOSS 302R
P9 #15 JADE BUFORD (S. Maxwell) MULTIMATINC MUSTANG BOSS 302R
P11 #76 RAY MASON COMPASS 360 R SUBARU WRX-STi
P13 #41 JOHN FARANO (D.Empringham) TOWER EVENTS NISSAN 370Z
P16 #8 ANTHONY MANTELLA (M. Wilkins) ASTON MARTIN VANTAGE
P19 #00 ASHLEYMCCALMONT CAMARO GS.R
P25 #8 BARKEY/MARCELLI PORSCHE 997

ST CLass
P5 #4 ADAM ISMAN (R. Ruscitti) PORSCHE BOXSTER
P6 #93 CHAD GILSINGER (Michael Valiante) HONDA CIVIC SI
P14 #75 KYLE GIMPLE COMPASS 360 R HONDA CIVIC SI
P22 #74 JAMES VANCE COMPASS 360 R HONDA CIVIC SI

Despite seven cautions, the IMSA Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race still had 47 (of 60) cars running at the end. Mark Wilkins was the last car "out" after contact sent him into the gravel with just six laps to go. To IMSA's credit, they made this a local yellow and the race went green to the end. Scott Maxwell turned the Multimatic Motorsports #15 Mustang Boss 302R on it's head in the gravel at the bottom of The Corkscrew (we did not see a full replay to see how that happened) but he did walk away from the car under his own power. The Porsche 997 of Barkey & Marcelli was out after 26 laps and the C360R Subaru was out after 22 laps. We do not have any information as to the cause of these retirements.

Best result for the Canadian was Max Riddle in the #07 TRG-AMR Aston Martin which finished P3. David Empringham (John Farano) brought the Tower Events Nissan 370Z home sixth while Ian James had the Multimatic Motorsports #158 Mustang Boss 302 R in tenth.

In ST, Ryan Eversley brought the Compass 360 Racing #74 Honda Civic Si to seventh in class with Michael Valiante ninth in the HART Honda Civic Si. Remo Ruscitti just missed the top fin finishing eleventh in the #4 Porsche Boxster.

Here is a list of how the Canadians finished overall and in class:

COP CCP CLASS DRIVER CAR
P3 3 GS #7 WILSON ASTON (Max Riddle)
P6 6 GS #41 EMPRINGHAM NISSAN (John Farano)
P10 10 GS #158 JAMES MUSTANG (Multimatic Motorsports)
P25 7 ST #75 EVERSLEY HONDA (Compass 360 Racing)
P27 9 ST #93 VALIANTE HONDA 
P29 11 ST #4 RUSCITTI PORSCHE
P39 21 ST #74 MILLER HONDA (Compass 360 Racing)
P46 21 GS #8 WILKINS ASTON (Anthony Mantella - Mantella Autosports)
P53 23 GS #15 MAXWELL MUSTANG (Multimatic Motorsports)
P55 24 GS #8 MARCELLI PORSCHE
P56 25 GS #76 MASON SUBARU (Compass 360 Racing)

The TUDOR Championship scheduled to run two races with split classes. First would be the Prototype Challenge (PC) cars running with the GT Daytona (GTD) class. This would be followed by a race featuring the Prototype (P) and GT Le Mans (GTLM) cars. Each race would be two hours in length. AS per usual, each class qualified independently. There were seven Canadian entries total in the TUDOR series (1 team; six drivers) and their qualifying results are as follows:

GTD:
P12 SCUDERIA CORSA #95 FERRARI 458 ITALIA (Johansson / Marcelli)
P15 AIM AUTOSPORT #555 FERRARI 458 ITALIA (Sweedler)

PC
P5 # 08 ORECA FLM09 (C. Cumming / A. Tagliani)
P6 #38 ORECA FLM09 (D. Ostella)

GTLM
P9 #93 SRT VIPR GTS-R (K. Wittmer)

P
P2 #90 CORVETTE DP (M. Valiante)

NOTE: We, along with the rest of Canadian race fans, were unable to watch the race live for a variety of reasons (unless you are one of the lucky SHAW or COGECO subscribers who still get SPEED) so we can not provide an accurate race report. However, we can report that Chris Cumming and Alex Tagliani recovered from issues to finish fifth in PC (and overall). David Ostella was not running at the end and finished eighth in class (29th overall) In GTD, Marcelli finished 10th in class with the AIM Ferrari coming home 14th.

In the second race, Michael Valiante took the #90 Corvette DP into the lead and controlled the race for 26 laps. Westbrook took over the car and got back towards the front but would later have to overcome a penalty and fight back to finish fifth overall.

In GTLM, Kuno Wittmer battled to get the #93 Viper up to the front of the class and he and Bomarito stayed in the fight to finish seventh in class and the last car on the "class lead lap".

It only gets busier from here with multiple race weekends from around the globe and we at RaceCanada will do our best to keep you updated.

Cheers and hopefully we'll see you at the track

photos:
Bruno Spengler / BMW Team Schnitzer © DTM
Nicolas Latifi / Prema Powerteam, Dallara F312 - Mercedes © FIAF3