GT class points leader Dirk Müller teamed with Joey Hand in Z4 #56 to finish fifth, while Bill Auberlen and Maxime Martin finished sixth in car #55. Martin set the fastest GT-class lap late in the race. But while the Z4s could run a quick lap, they could not keep up on Mosport’s long straights.
The class win went to Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin in their Corvette. The SRT Vipers of Dominik Farnbacher/Marc Goossens and Jonathan Bomarito/Kuno Wittmer rounded out the podium, while the Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia was fourth.
Joey Hand was back in the US for a short break in his DTM season. He ran in DTM on the Norisring last weekend, will run again on Friday in the Rolex Series race in Indianapolis, where he will team with Tony Kanaan in a Ganassi Racing Riley-BMW, and then will travel to Moscow for the DTM race on August 4.
Bobby Rahal, Team RLL principal, believes that BMW will be fighting an uphill battle in the near term. Speaking of this weekend’s race, he said, “The Corvettes and Vipers are 10kmh faster than we are up the straightaway. When the Z4s are by themselves we can make up that difference, but when you get in traffic, they get a run on you and there is nothing you can do. They just drive by us. Obviously there needs to be a change in the restrictor in both the Corvette and the Viper because how can you make up 10kmh? Now we go to Elkhart Lake and that will probably be more of the same. It’s pretty disappointing that these straight line speed advantages continue. We just have to make the best of it and see what we can do at Road America.”
Müller maintains his points lead after the CTMP race. The event at Road America will be a double header, with both the ALMS and Grand-Am series racing on the same weekend.—Brian S. Morgan
