Bowmanville. The #25 BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 of Connor De Phillippi (USA) and Nick Yelloly (GBR) scored a third-place finish by way of a clever strategy at the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP, CAN) to record the team’s fourth podium of the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season and 100th podium in the team’s history. So far this year the #25 car has scored a win (Watkins Glen, USA), two runner-up finishes (Sebring and Long Beach, both USA), and a third (CTMP). De Phillippi and Yelloly stand second in the GTP driver point standings and BMW stands second in the GTP class manufacturer points.
The duo completed 119 laps of the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park circuit in the two-hour-and-forty-minute event, finishing some 19 seconds behind the #60 Acura ARX-06 under the race’s fourth caution period. Pitting very early on lap 14 for fuel only, starting driver Yelloly jumped off-sequence from the eight other GTP class competitors, and as the field made their first pit stops cycled into the lead. Without the hoped-for caution period that could have kept the car in front, he handed off to De Phillippi on lap 55 under green. That first caution occurred on lap 66 and De Phillippi pitted for fuel only on lap 68. The race endured three more cautions in the last one-hour-and-forty minutes allowing De Phillippi to move into third and clinch the last podium position as the race ended under yellow with the race’s final caution.
Augusto Farfus (BRA) and Philipp Eng (AUT) endured a difficult day to finish eighth. Mired in the rear of the field for the majority of the race, the duo had little luck moving forward, both drivers incurring a drive-through penalty in their stints. Farfus and Eng stand eighth in driver points, with a season’s-best fourth-place finish (Long Beach) in the #24 car.
In the GTD class, Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow (both USA) increased their GTD driver points lead with the third win (Sebring, Long Beach and CTMP) of the season for the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3. Bill Auberlen and Chandler Hull (both USA) finished fifth in the Turner Motorsport #97 BMW M4 GT3. The Turner Motorsport #96 BMW M4 GT3 of Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher (both USA) ended its race on lap 86 after a collision damaged the left front suspension. The car was credited with a 13th place finish.
Round seven for the GTD class BMWs will take place at Lime Rock Park (USA) on 22nd July. The next round of the 2023 IMSA Series for the GTP class takes place at Road America (USA) on 6th August.
Quotes after the race:
Bobby Rahal (Team Principal BMW M Team RLL): “I’m really impressed. The guys with the #25 car pulled off a great strategy. We weren’t the fastest car by any means, and yet our strategy really worked out and Connor did a great job of staying ahead of everybody at the end. It just shows you that you can never count yourself out. Anything can happen. We had a bunch of yellows right at the end and that certainly worked in our favour. I think this does great things for us in the points as well.”
Connor De Phillippi (#25 BMW M Hybrid V8, 3rd place): “Another podium for us in the #25 car, so it was a good day. Obviously, we didn’t have quite the pace that we needed so the team tried a great strategy and with a little bit of luck, we managed to get up in the top three, and at the end, we were able to hang on to hold position and keep the podium streak alive. So proud of everybody on the team to put us in this position and happy it all worked out today. And yeah, we’ll focus on Road America and try to come back with a better performance and be ready to fight for the win on the next event.”
Nick Yelloly (#25 BMW M Hybrid V8, 3rd place): “P3 here today was not expected to be honest. We really struggled all weekend with the car being quite difficult to drive particularly over the bumps at a track that we’ve not been to before, so this was as good as we could have hoped. Great job by the strategy team. Great job by Connor to obviously keep it on the black part. It was quite difficult to do. And yeah, thanks to BMW M Motorsport for all the effort. Of course, it’s a good way to have my first experience at Mosport and hopefully when we come back next year, we are even more competitive.”
Augusto Farfus (#24 BMW M Hybrid V8, 8th place): “I think today we just tried to do the maximum with what we had. Unfortunately, we were not lucky with the strategy so then there was not much to do. In the last stint, I tried to push as hard as I could to make up some positions but we didn’t have enough and on this track it is very difficult to overtake. So we take the lesson, take the mileage and focus on the next race.”
Philipp Eng (#24 BMW M Hybrid V8, 8th place): “Unfortunately, quite an unlucky race for us. The yellows didn’t work for our race. But on the flip side, anything can happen and we saw it again with the #25. They had a trouble-free race. They had good pace and finished on the podium so many congratulations to the team.”