CORE autosport finished 14th in the Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. Rain came into play twice during the two-hour and 40-minute WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race, which eventually finished under yellow.
Jon Bennett qualified the No. 54 Flexbox / Composite Resources Porsche 911 GT3 R 14th, but the team opted to change its tires before the race, which moved the car to the back of the GT Daytona grid.
On the start, Bennett was able to keep pace with the GTD pack, but zero full-course cautions during his stint and faster classes coming through slowed him. He eventually fell a lap down before handing the car over to Colin Braun.
Not long after Braun took over, rain moved into the area just as the race got its first full-course caution. The rain got worse during the yellow and some teams pitted to change to rain tires, but CORE anticipated the rain would stop just as the race went back to green and stayed on slicks. It was the right choice. The rain stopped.
When the GTD teams that pitted under yellow for rain tires returned to pit lane after the restart to go back to slicks, Braun was bumped up to the team’s original qualifying position: 14th.
Two more full-course cautions followed, preventing any more progress for Braun, and the race ended under yellow, as again, more rain moved across the track.
CORE autosport has a week off before its next WeatherTech Championship event: the Northeast Grand Prix. Lime Rock Park, in Lakeville, Conn., will host the event July 21 – 22.
Jon Bennett
Driver: No. 54 Porsche 911 GT3 R
“I’m happy with my stint, and I’m especially happy with Colin’s performance and the team’s performance. This is a notoriously tough event, and even more so with back-to-back race weekends. We’re trying to catch up with the performance of the other manufacturers in our class. I am hopeful that things will change at Lime Rock, and I am looking forward to the balance of the season.”
Colin Braun
Driver: No. 54 Porsche 911 GT3 R
“It was just one of those days. We didn’t have the performance of the other manufacturers, but we did a good job and did all we could with what we had. Sometimes that is how it goes. It was a tough call to decide whether to put on rain tires or slicks. The guys made the right call, even though I thought at the time I needed rain tires. The conditions were sketchy and different teams were taking different strategies, which made it fun for a few laps. I wish it had rained more because maybe that would have changed things up and we would have had a chance to do something different. However, it dried up pretty quickly and we were back to a dry pace.”
