John Edwards and Lucas Luhr in the #24 BMW Team RLL Z4 finished second in the GTLM class in the July 12 Tudor United SportsCar Championship race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. Bill Auberlen and Dirk Werner, who had run second in Z4 #25 until the car’s handling deteriorated late in the race, finished fourth. Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet dominated the class and took the win in the #911 Porsche North America 911 RSR.
Jan Magnussen and Andy Garcia took third in the #3 Corvette C7.R; Garcia’s late race pass on Auberlen moved the Corvette duo into first in drivers’ points, just ahead of Auberlen and Werner. Edwards and Luhr remained third in drivers’ points and BMW retained its lead in manufacturers’ points.
Team principal Bobby Rahal said, “We have always struggled at this race. Dirk did a great job and really had a good second. The No. 911 Porsche was just in a class of its own; that was really clear. It was all going according to plan but then the plan unraveled at the end. John and Lucas did a great job to end up P2. It will be interesting to see what happened with the No. 25 car, as we had ten seconds in hand with ten laps to go and lost it all. We earned some great points this weekend to stay ahead of Corvette in the manufacturer championship. This is the best result we have had here and is definitely a big improvement over where we have been in the past.”
The GTLM cars will run again at Road America on August 9.—Brian S. Morgan
