2015 SportsCar Grand Prix
The 2015 Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix presented by Hawk Performance was a professional sports car racing event held at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park near Bowmanville, Ontario on July 12, 2015. The race was the seventh round of the 2015 United SportsCar Championship season and the event marked the 30th IMSA sanctioned sports car race held at the facility.
Race background
For 2015, the Tudor Championship race featured the Prototype (P) and GT Le Mans (GTLM) classes alongside the Prototype Challenge (PC) class which replaced the GT Daytona (GTD) class which competed at the 2014 edition of the Grand Prix.
The weekend also included races for the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge, Cooper Tires Prototype Lites, Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA, and the Mazda MX-5 Cup.
Entries
A total of 23 cars took part in the event split across 3 classes. 8 cars were entered in P, 7 in PC, and in 8 GTLM. In P, SpeedSource elected to run one entry for the third consecutive race. In PC, Mirco Schultis returned to the Starworks Motorsport entry. Matt McMurry joined Mikhail Goikhberg in the JDC-Miller MotorSports entry.
Practice
There were three practice sessions preceding the start of the race on Saturday, two on Friday and one on Saturday. The first two one-hour sessions were on Friday morning and afternoon. The third on Saturday morning lasted an hour.
Practice 1
The first practice session took place at 11:20 am ET on Friday and ended with Ricky Taylor topping the charts for Wayne Taylor Racing, with a lap time of 1:10.451.
| Pos. | Class | No. | Team | Driver | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P | 10 | Wayne Taylor Racing | Ricky Taylor | 1:10.451 | _ |
| 2 | P | 60 | Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian | Oswaldo Negri Jr. | 1:10.616 | +0.165 |
| 3 | P | 31 | Action Express Racing | Dane Cameron | 1:10.660 | +0.209 |
| Source: | ||||||
Practice 2
The second practice session took place at 4:00 pm ET on Friday and ended with Oswaldo Negri Jr. topping the charts for Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian, with a lap time of 1:09.216.
| Pos. | Class | No. | Team | Driver | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P | 60 | Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian | Oswaldo Negri Jr. | 1:09.216 | _ |
| 2 | P | 10 | Wayne Taylor Racing | Ricky Taylor | 1:09.879 | +0.663 |
| 3 | P | 31 | Action Express Racing | Dane Cameron | 1:10.174 | +0.958 |
| Source: | ||||||
Practice 3
The third and final practice session took place at 10:00 am ET on Saturday and ended with Oswaldo Negri Jr. topping the charts for Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian, with a lap time of 1:09.168.
| Pos. | Class | No. | Team | Driver | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P | 60 | Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian | Oswaldo Negri Jr. | 1:09.168 | _ |
| 2 | P | 31 | Action Express Racing | Dane Cameron | 1:09.645 | +0.477 |
| 3 | P | 5 | Action Express Racing | Christian Fittipaldi | 1:09.709 | +0.119 |
| Source: | ||||||
Qualifying
Qualifying was broken into three sessions. The first session of qualifying was for the GTLM class. Nick Tandy qualified on pole in GTLM driving the No. 911 Porsche North America entry.
The second session of qualifying was for the PC class. James French qualified on pole driving the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports entry.
The final session of qualifying was for the P class. Ricky Taylor qualified on pole driving the No. 10 car for Wayne Taylor Racing.
Qualifying results
Pole positions in each class are indicated in bold and by ‡.
| Pos. | Class | No. | Team | Driver | Time | Gap | Grid |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | P | 10 | Wayne Taylor Racing | Ricky Taylor | 1:09.705 | _ | 1‡ |
| 2 | P | 5 | Action Express Racing | Christian Fittipaldi | 1:09.864 | +0.159 | 2 |
| 3 | P | 01 | Chip Ganassi Racing | Scott Pruett | 1:10.138 | +0.433 | 3 |
| 4 | P | 90 | VisitFlorida.com Racing | Michael Valiante | 1:10.399 | +0.694 | 4 |
| 5 | P | 31 | Action Express Racing | Eric Curran | 1:10.508 | +0.803 | 5 |
| 6 | P | 60 | Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian | John Pew | 1:10.725 | +1.020 | 6 |
| 7 | P | 0 | DeltaWing Racing Cars with Claro/TracFone | Katherine Legge | 1:11.276 | +1.571 | 7 |
| 8 | P | 07 | SpeedSource | Tom Long | 1:12.629 | +2.924 | 8 |
| 9 | PC | 38 | Performance Tech Motorsports | James French | 1:12.667 | +2.962 | 9‡ |
| 10 | PC | 11 | RSR Racing | Chris Cumming | 1:12.699 | +2.994 | 10 |
| 11 | PC | 54 | CORE Autosport | Jon Bennett | 1:13.007 | +3.302 | 11 |
| 12 | PC | 52 | PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports | Mike Guasch | 1:13.022 | +3.317 | 12 |
| 13 | PC | 85 | JDC-Miller MotorSports | Mikhail Goikhberg | 1:13.169 | +3.464 | 13 |
| 14 | PC | 16 | BAR1 Motorsports | John Falb | 1:13.220 | +3.515 | 14 |
| 15 | PC | 8 | Starworks Motorsport | Mirco Schultis | 1:14.458 | +4.753 | 15 |
| 16 | GTLM | 911 | Porsche North America | Nick Tandy | 1:14.829 | +5.124 | 16‡ |
| 17 | GTLM | 25 | BMW Team RLL | Dirk Werner | 1:14.857 | +5.152 | 17 |
| 18 | GTLM | 24 | BMW Team RLL | Lucas Luhr | 1:14.984 | +5.279 | 18 |
| 19 | GTLM | 62 | Risi Competizione | Pierre Kaffer | 1:15.298 | +5.593 | 19 |
| 20 | GTLM | 3 | Corvette Racing | Jan Magnussen | 1:15.325 | +5.620 | 20 |
| 21 | GTLM | 912 | Porsche North America | Jörg Bergmeister | 1:15.386 | +5.681 | 21 |
| 22 | GTLM | 4 | Corvette Racing | Oliver Gavin | 1:15.463 | +5.758 | 22 |
| 23 | GTLM | 17 | Team Falken Tire | Bryan Sellers | 1:15.544 | +5.839 | 23 |
| Source: | |||||||
Report
Race summary
The race was won overall by Jordan Taylor and Ricky Taylor, driving a Corvette Daytona Prototype for Wayne Taylor Racing. They finished just ahead of a similar car driven by Action Express Racing pairing Dane Cameron and Eric Curran, while the podium was completed by the Ligier JS P2 of Michael Shank Racing, driven by Oswaldo Negri Jr. and John Pew. In eighth place overall, CORE Autosport won the Prototype Challenge class with drivers Jon Bennett and Colin Braun, while the GT Le Mans honors were taken by Porsche North America – run by CORE Autosport – in twelfth place overall, with a Porsche 911 RSR driven by Patrick Pilet and Nick Tandy.
Race results
Media
Television
The race was broadcast live by Fox Sports on Fox Sports 1 in the United States and on Fox Sports Racing in Canada, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. The event was televised internationally by Motors TV in Europe and Network Ten in Australia.
| United SportsCar Championship on Fox Sports | ||
|---|---|---|
| Booth Announcers | Pit reporters | |
| Announcer | Bob Varsha |
Brian Till Jamie Howe |
| Color |
Calvin Fish Justin Bell |
|
Radio
The race was broadcast by IMSA Radio with announcers John Hindhaugh and Jeremy Shaw calling the race on IMSA.tv and radiolemans.com, which was simulcast on Sirius channel 117 satellite radio and on 90.7 FM at the track.
| IMSA Radio | ||
|---|---|---|
| Booth Announcers | Pit reporters | |
| Announcer | John Hindhaugh | Shea Adam Greg Creamer |
| Color | Jeremy Shaw | |
Support race results
| CTSC | Prototype Lites | GT3 Cup USA | MX-5 Cup | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GS |
Jade Buford Austin Cindric |
Race 1 | Kenton Koch | Elliott Skeer | Chad McCumbee |
| ST |
Spencer Pumpelly Luis Rodriguez Jr. |
Race 2 | Clark Toppe | Elliott Skeer | Patrick Gallagher |