Ford Chip Ganassi Racing will start p5-6 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park on Sunday after struggling with pace during qualifying.
Drivers Ryan Briscoe and Joey Hand will start the No.’s 67 and 66 Ford GTs side-by-side on the third row of GTLM in a bid to win the 2-hour, 40-minute race for the second-consecutive year.
“I was really pleased with the qualifying lap I was able to get,” Briscoe said. “It felt like I maximized our situation. I’m pleased with it. It’s not where I want to be, but it’s a long race and I think there are definitely some strong points with this car. It’s consistent, we can get the fuel mileage when we need to, and that will all play a part in trying to win tomorrow’s race. I don’t think we have the quickest car this weekend, but we’re definitely going to go racing tomorrow.”
Fortunately, strategy is a strong point for the team, whose strategists are already hard at work on the plan for the race.
“I think we’re getting the balance of the cars closer to where we need to be for this track,” said Team Principal Mike O’Gara. “We’re struggling with overall pace. We’ve got some ideas for race strategy tomorrow to get these guys where they need to be to race at the end. We’ll keep working on the cars overnight and hopefully have a little bit better pace and a better strategy tomorrow to beat the competition.”
Going into the weekend, co-drivers Joey Hand and Dirk Müller were second in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship points hunt, eight behind the leaders. Ford is second in the GTLM manufacturers standings, just four points behind.
