Nick Tandy managed to claim a new Canadian Tire Motorsport Park GTLM track record en route to claiming the pole in his Porsche GT 911 RSR for Sunday’s Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix.
Upon learning that he had broken the class qualifying record in the post-qualifying press conference, Tandy’s eyes widened and he only had one word: “Sweet!”
Porsche topped all practice and qualifying sessions across the weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. While Tandy’s teammates in the #912 will start the race P4, he is confident of the car’s pace.
“Clearly both Porsches have been very quick this weekend,” he said. “It’s not very often that you get to come to a track in the GTLM class and have a quick car in all the sessions. We know that Mosport has typically and historically been a good track for Porsche.”
“We knew we had to maximize this weekend.”
Ryan Briscoe put the #67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing entry P2 after a series of practice runs that seemed off pace for a team that dominated all sessions in the previous race. Jan Magnussen’s P3 run in the #3 Corvette saw the class’ three big teams fully represented at the top of the field.
The top three positions were separated by less than .500.
Joey Hand sat at the very bottom of the qualifying session and will start behind the pair of BMW Team RLL entries in his Ford. With only a one point lead at the top of the GTLM standings, the pressure will be on the #66 to perform and make up for ground lost in qualifying.
