Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix – Entry List Notebook

By IMSA Wire Service

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship returns to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park for the seventh round of the 12-race season, the Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix on Sunday, July 8.

The entry list features 34 cars spread across three WeatherTech Championship classes. The Prototype (P) class has 14 entries, GT Le Mans (GTLM) has eight entries and GT Daytona (GTD) has 12 entries for the two-hour, 40-minute race.

The Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park will be televised on FS1 on a delayed basis beginning at 4 p.m. ET and will be carried live by IMSA Radio on IMSA.com, RadioLeMans.com and SiriusXM Radio. Tickets are available now on CanadianTireMotorsportPark.com.

Notes:
– Of 68 drivers on the provisional entry list, 25 of them have at least one previous victory at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park since 1999.

– Jan Magnussen is the driver in the field with the most CTMP victories with six class wins. The driver of the No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C7.R first won there in the American Le Mans Series GTP class in 1999 and his most recent was a WeatherTech Championship GTLM win in 2014. Another Corvette driver, Oliver Gavin in the No. 4 machine, is a four-time winner at CTMP.

– Corvette Racing is far and away the winningest team at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park with an astonishing 11 total victories at the venue. It won its class five years in a row in ALMS competition from 2001 through 2005, then had a run of three in a row from 2007 through 2009. The team’s most recent win at CTMP came in 2014 when Magnussen and Antonio Garcia won the GTLM class in the No. 3 Corvette C7.R.

– Dane Cameron and Eric Curran each are carrying two-race win streaks at CTMP into the weekend, as they shared the Prototype and overall victories in each of the past two years in the No. 31 Action Express Racing entry. This weekend, Cameron will go for his third straight alongside new co-driver Juan Pablo Montoya in the No. 6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05 DPI, while Curran is sharing the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac DPi-V.R with Felipe Nasr.

– Scott Sharp, who co-drives the No. 2 Tequila Patrón ESM Nissan DPi with Ryan Dalziel, has three previous victories at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, including an overall victory in 2009 in an Acura LMP1 race car.

– CORE autosport – which fields the No. 54 ORECA LMP2 car for Jon Bennett and Colin Braun – owns four PC class victories and also took a GTLM win with its Porsche GT Team program in 2015. Bennett and Braun are three-time winners in the PC class at CTMP.

– It’s been 19 years since No. 66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT driver Dirk Mueller won his first and only race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. The German took an ALMS GT win there in 1999.

– Gustavo Yacaman, who drives the No. 52 AFS/PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports Ligier LMP2 machine, scored his only WeatherTech Championship victory to date at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, winning overall and in the Prototype class in the OAK Racing Nissan LMP2 car in 2014.

– Porsche is the winningest manufacturer at CTMP with 15 class victories, but Chevrolet is right on its heels. The Bowtie Brigade has 13 victories on the ultra-fast Canadian circuit.

– This weekend’s field includes three drivers who make their homes in Canada. Kyle Marcelli, of Barrie, Ontario, will drive the No. 14 3GT Racing Lexus RC F this weekend with Dominik Baumann in the GTD class. He’ll be joined in the class by Mikael Grenier, who hails from Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury, Quebec. Grenier is co-driving the No. 75 SunEnergy1 Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 with Australian driver Kenny Habul. And Russian-born driver Misha Goikhberg – who won last Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen in the No. 99 JDC-Miller Motorsports ORECA LMP2 car with full-season co-driver Stephen Simpson and endurance teammate Chris Miller– makes his home in the Toronto area.

Previous Canadian Tire Motorsport Park Race-Winning Drivers in 2018 Field Since 1999 (26)
Jan Magnussen (6) – ALMS GTP – 1999, ALMS GT1 – 2007, 2008, ALMS GT2 – 2009, ALMS GT – 2011, GTLM – 2014
Oliver Gavin (4) – ALMS GTS – 2004, ALMS GT1 – 2005, ALMS GT – 2011, 2013
Scott Sharp (3) – ALMS P2 – 2008, ALMS P1/Overall – 2009, ALMS GT – 2012
Jon Bennett (3) – ALMS PC – 2013, PC – 2015, 2016
Colin Braun (3) – ALMS PC – 2013, PC – 2015, 2016
Patrick Long (2) – ALMS GT2 – 2005, ALMS GT – 2010
Lawson Aschenbach (2) – ALMS GTC – 2010, GTD – 2017
Jeroen Bleekemolen (2) – ALMS GTC – 2013, GTD – 2014
Dane Cameron (2) – P/Overall – 2016, 2017
Eric Curran (2) – P/Overall – 2016, 2017
Dirk Mueller (1) – ALMS GT – 1999
David Heinemeier-Hansson (1) – ALMS P2 – 2012
Johannes van Overbeek (1) – ALMS GT – 2012
Tommy Milner (1) – ALMS GT – 2013
Cooper MacNeil (1) – ALMS GTC – 2013
Gustavo Yacaman (1) – P/Overall – 2014
Antonio Garcia (1) – GTLM – 2014
Ben Keating (1) – GTD – 2014
Jordan Taylor (1) – P/Overall – 2015
Ricky Taylor (1) – P/Overall – 2015
Patrick Pilet (1) – GTLM – 2015
Nick Tandy (1) – GTLM – 2015
Ryan Briscoe (1) – GTLM – 2016
Richard Westbrook (1) – GTLM – 2016
Bill Auberlen (1) – GTLM – 2017
Alexander Sims (1) – GTLM – 2017

Previous Canadian Tire Motorsport Park Pole Winners (Since 1999) in 2018 Field (11)
Dirk Mueller (3) – ALMS GT – 2001, 2011; ALMS GT2 – 2009
Oliver Gavin (3) – ALMS GTS – 2003, 2004; ALMS GT1
Jan Magnussen (2) – ALMS GTP – 1999; ALMS GT – 2012
Colin Braun (2) – ALMS PC – 2012; PC – 2016
Jeroen Bleekemolen (2) – ALMS GTC – 2013; GTD – 2014
Ricky Taylor (2) – P/Overall – 2015, 2017
James French (2) – PC – 2015, 2017
Jonathan Bomarito (1) – ALMS GT – 2013
Gustavo Yacaman (1) – P/Overall – 2014
Nick Tandy (1) – GTLM – 2015
Tristan Nunez (1) – P/Overall – 2016

Previous Canadian Tire Motorsport Park Race-Winning Teams (Since 1999) in 2018 Field (13)
Corvette Racing (11) – ALMS GTS – 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004; ALMS GT1 – 2005, 2007, 2008; ALMS GT2 – 2009; ALMS GT – 2011, 2013; GTLM – 2014
CORE autosport (4) – ALMS PC – 2011, 2013; PC – 2015, 2016
Acura Team Penske (2) – ALMS P2 – 2006, ALMS P2/Overall – 2007
Action Express Racing (2) – P/Overall – 2016, 2017
Mazda Team Joest (1) – ALMS LMP900 – 2003
Tequila Patrón ESM (1) – ALMS GT – 2012
Mercedes-AMG Team Riley Motorsports (1) – GTD – 2014
Wayne Taylor Racing (1) – P/Overall – 2015
Porsche GT Team (1) – GTLM – 2015
Ford Chip Ganassi Racing (1) – GTLM – 2016
Turner Motorsport (1) – GTD – 2016
Performance Tech Motorsports (1) – PC – 2017
BMW Team RLL (1) – GTLM – 2017

Previous Canadian Tire Motorsport Park Race-Winning Manufacturers (Since 1999) in 2018 Field (8)
Porsche – 15
Chevrolet – 13
Audi – 7
Ferrari – 4
Acura – 3
BMW – 3
Cadillac – 1
Ford – 1