Bowmanville, ON – The Michelin Pilot Challenge headlined Saturday action for IMSA’s annual stop at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP), where Canadian Robert Wickens took home the TCR class victory, with co-driver Harry Gottsacker; the defending champions’ first win together also marked Wickens’ first victory since CTMP in 2022.
Jack Hawksworth and Jaden Conwright started on the GS and overall pole, while Wickens and Gottsacker started up front in TCR. An early full-course caution came on Lap 1, when Bryce Ward spun in turn two.
Just after the restart, a tough break for Canadian Mark Wilkins, whose co-driver Mason Filippi pitted with a flat tire. The race remained green through the remainder of the first half, with Hawksworth leading in GS and Chris Miller (with co-driver Mikey Taylor) leading in TCR.
The top-two GS runners pitted with 1 hour and 5 minutes remaining in the two-hour event, where Conwright took over for Hawksworth and cycled back to the lead with 57 minutes to go. Wickens took over for Gottsacker with 57 minutes left, ultimately cycling ahead of Taylor for the TCR lead.
With 56 minutes to go, full course caution for the TWOth Autosport Porsche stalled off the Andretti straightaway. The team, with drivers Justin Di Benedetto and Travis Hill, had an issue in qualifying and started at the back of the 23-car GS grid. Di Benedetto drove the car into the top-15 before running out of fuel, as the team tried to stretch their opening run.
Conwright led a contingent of GS cars onto pit road under the yellow flag, while eight drivers stayed out, hoping to save enough fuel under caution to avoid making another stop.
Trent Hindman (with co-driver Stevan McAleer) took over the lead, while the drivers who pitted struggled to gain ground. Taylor passed Wickens after the restart in TCR and held the lead until 27 minutes to go, when he slowed off pace and pulled his Audi into a runoff area at turn five.
Wickens took over P1 and went on to snap his winless streak in the Michelin Pilot Challenge. The Guelph, ON driver says that the victory was a team effort.
“We’re the heaviest car in TCR and you kind of pay the price, exit of (turn) 5b all the way up to turn eight,” said Wickens. “We had a great car, great balance, but any time we had the lead we would basically lose it exiting turn five…I think we won the race with a bit of fortune, but we put ourselves in the right spot. Harry did what he had to do to extend our stint one lap so that we had no threat of fuel at the end and I could just push and attack.”
The drivers entered CTMP in third-place in the standings. Wickens says that they’ve had so much success together, with podium finishes and last year’s title, but that they need to flip the script and win the championship on victories, not consistency.
Hindman and McAleer went on to record the GS and overall victory, after starting the race in third.
“We were gearing up for a pretty hard fight from the McLaren and the Toyota (in the second half),” said Hindman. “When I got in the car, I was just thinking about where we can maybe make it happen or not, but as soon as that yellow fell, our guys on the box made a great call to stay out and save fuel and take the risk. It was a calculated risk but fortunately it worked out.”
Next up for the Michelin Pilot Challenge is Road America on August 1-4. The Chevrolet Grand Prix weekend at CTMP continues with the headline WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, with green flag scheduled for Sunday at 11:05 a.m. ET.
