Date: July 10, 2016
Event: Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix (Round 7 of 10)
Series: Prototype division of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship
Location: Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario (2.459-mile, 10-turn road course)
Start/Finish: 2nd/3rd (Running, completed 125 of 125 laps)
Winner: Dane Cameron and Eric Curran of Action Express Racing (Corvette DP)
Point Standing: 3rd (211 points, nine out of first)
 
A third consecutive trip to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario for brothers and co-drivers Ricky and Jordan Taylor and the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP for Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) netted a third consecutive podium finish in Sunday’s Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix.
 
The third-place finish by last year’s race winners and 2014 third-place finishers at round seven of the 10-event IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship was a story of good and not-so-good. On the short-term, their overall performance during today’s two-hour, 40-minute race was significantly stronger than their previous two visits here. But, in the big picture, their 2016 title hopes took a slight hit as the only two teams to beat them across the finish line are the very two teams they are competing with for season-ending honors.
 
Jordan Taylor, who took over the driving duties from his older brother with two hours to go, gradually drove his way from fourth, to third, to second place, then ever-so-briefly into the lead for a couple of laps during the race’s final round of green-flag fuel-and-tire stops with 44 minutes remaining. He rejoined the race in second after the team elected to take a gamble in the interests of track position by changing only rear tires, and Taylor did his best to keep pace with the race-leading No. 31 Action Express Racing Corvette DP of Dane Cameron as long as he could, as well as to hold off the championship-leading No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP of Joao Barbosa immediately behind him.
 
Cameron was able to slowly extend his lead as the closing minutes of the race ticked off the clock, but with his double-stinted front tires all but rendered useless, Taylor couldn’t keep Barbosa behind him all the way to the checkered flag. He relinquished second place with just less than five minutes remaining and had to settle for third place behind the race-winning Cameron and runner-up Barbosa.
 
“It was an OK day, I guess,” Taylor said. Third place is a good points day, but the guys we’re competing with for the championship both finished in front of us, so that’s a little bit frustrating. I think a positive to take away is that, last year at this race, we were quite far off the pace and, this year, we were right in the hunt, pace-wise, with the lead guys. I think if we had track position, we would’ve been in way better shape. At the end, we had big drop-off with the front tires and I knew there was no way I was going to hold off the 5. Good and bad things to take away, but another podium is not a bad thing.”
 
Ricky Taylor, who turned in another amazing qualifying effort Saturday by putting the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP on the outside of the front row, got things off to the best-possible start today when he timed the waving of the green flag perfectly and grabbed the lead from polesitter Tristan Nunez in the No. 55 Mazda LMP2 entry. Taylor was able to stay up front for the first 11 laps when he and Nunez caught up to lapped traffic. When Taylor was balked by a GT-class Porsche, the Mazda driver was able to take advantage and slip past. From there, Nunez easily checked out to a more than 23-second lead before his first scheduled pit stop and driver change on lap 38. Taylor retook the lead for a lap before pitting to hand things over to his brother. The polesitting Mazda later fell back after a slow pit stop, then ultimately fell out of contention with mechanical issues.
 
“Well, I was staying next to him and I think he tried to get me to brake and then he wanted to go,” Taylor said of his remarkable race start. “So, I went when they told us to go and let the chips fall where they may. I might have been complaining if I was them, but I didn’t want to brake and go back to fifth. It’s a lot of work to get around this place, to try and maintain your track position. But it’s a lot of fun, too. You just can’t take your eyes off of it for a second. I really was struggling on those qualifying tires and did my best to hold off the Mazda. But, once he got by, it was a race among the rest of us behind him.”
 
With three events remaining, the championship chase saw the No. 5 Action Express Corvette DP of Barbosa and Christian Fittipaldi emerge from Canadian Tire Motorsport Park with a four-point lead over its No. 31 team car and a nine-point lead over the Konica Minolta Corvette DP.
 
“First, I’d like to congratulate the whole Whelen (No. 31) team,” team owner Wayne Taylor said. “Those guys deserved to win. They had the better car today and they have a good team around them. I want to thank Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A. – for Rick Taylor (President and CEO, Americas) and Mike Mathe (Senior Vice President, International) for coming to Canada from the U.S., and having their company’s CEO from Canada here with us, today. Just the support from everybody from Konica Minolta really motivates all of us. Their enthusiasm makes us work harder. I honestly didn’t think we had a winning car – I thought maybe a fifth- or sixth-place car today. So, being on the podium was a better result than I expected. For a while there it looked like we would end up second, but we just ran out of front tires. All the team, as usual, did an outstanding job. Both drivers did what they always do. And now, it’s off to the next one.”
 
The 2016 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship takes the next three weekends off before the Aug. 7 Continental Tire Road Race Showcase at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. The two-hour, 40-minute race will be broadcast live by FS1 beginning at 4 p.m. EDT.