Dumas set the four fastest times on the day and was 0.627 seconds clear of Dyson Racing’s Guy Smith. He is driving the team’s Mazda-powered Lola coupe with Chris Dyson.
“It was really nice being back in this car,” said Dumas, the overall race winner at Mosport in the Porsche with Timo Bernhard in 2007. “We have a good base for the setup. After we found some good compromises, things started to get better and faster. We made some adjustments with the ride height and didn’t too much with the roll bar. We still have some work to do but so far it is very nice to be back in the car and driving for this team.”
Dumas led a group of five LMP drivers within 0.839 seconds of each other. Intersport Racing’s Jon Field was third in class at 1:08.604 (129.036 mph). He is driving the team’s Lola-AER with son Clint.
As tight as things were in LMP, the GT class was even closer. The top eight cars were within a second of each other, led by Risi Competizione’s Toni Vilander in the Ferrari F430 GT that he will drive with Pierre Kaffer. The Finnish star’s best lap was a 1:17.257 (114.584 mph), good enough for a 0.506-second gap back to Jaime Melo in the sister car. He will drive with Gianmaria Bruni.
Corvette Racing’s pairing of Oliver Gavin and Jan Magnussen sat third in class at 1:17.773 (113.824 mph) in their Corvette C6.R. The squad revamped its driver lineup which has put Gavin and Magnussen in the same car in Series competition for the first time since 2006. Johnny O’Connell and Olivier Beretta are in the second Corvette.
In LMPC, Luis Diaz set the fastest time for PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports in the ORECA FLM09 that he will drive with Ricardo Gonzalez. Diaz, who won at Mosport in LMP2 a year ago with Adrian Fernandez, set a best lap of 1:12.202 (122.606 mph) a week after winning the class pole position at Road America.
Christophe Bouchut was second in class for Level 5 Motorsports. The French veteran set a time of 1:13.381 (120.636 mph) in the car he will share with Scott Tucker. He went 0.294 seconds clear of the Green Earth Team Gunnar entry of Gunnar Jeannette and Elton Julian. The two teams are 1-2 in the class championship standings.
Jeroen Bleekemolen didn’t need much time to get a feel for Mosport. He set a GT Challenge-best time of 1:22.713 in Black Swan Racing’s Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car, 0.428 seconds quicker than TRG’s Andy Lally. Bleekemolen and teammate Tim Pappas have won four times in the last five races and hold the class championship lead.
ORBIT/Paul Miller Racing’s Bryce Miller was third in class at 1:23.333 (106.229 mph). Miller’s session was cut short when the car stopped on track with a blown engine after 17 minutes. Miller will drive with Luke Hines.
The first official practice is set for 9:45 a.m. ET on Saturday. The race is set for 3:05 p.m. ET on Sunday, August 29 from Mosport International Raceway in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada. SPEED will air the race in its entirety starting at 4 p.m. ET with live radio coverage available on American Le Mans Radio presented by Porsche – a production of Radio Show Limited – as well as Sirius Channel 127 and XM Channel 242. Americanlemans.com will stream qualifying live starting at 4:15 p.m. ET on Saturday. Visit the Series’ schedule page for ticket and accommodation information. Live Timing and Scoring, track schedule, entry list and much, much more will be available on Racehub at americanlemans.com.
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