The fastest venue in the American Le Mans Series produced another historic result Sunday. David Brabham and Scott Sharp drove their Patrón Highcroft Racing Acura ARX-02a to an overall victory at Mobil 1 presents the Grand Prix of Mosport and clinched the LMP1 manufacturer championship for Acura, the marque’s first in the American Le Mans Series. Luis Diaz and Adrian Fernandez won in LMP2 for the seventh time in eight races to wrap up the class’ drivers title in their Acura ARX-01b.
And Corvette Racing’s Johnny O’Connell and Jan Magnussen won the team’s first race in GT2 with their three-race-old Corvette C6.R in O’Connell’s 100th Series start.
Yes, it was quite a day north of the border.
Brabham and Sharp drove a trouble-free race to beat the de Ferran Motorsports Acura of team boss Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud by two laps. The de Ferran XM Acura led the first half-hour before losing gearbox oil, an issue that plagued the Pagenaud-de Ferran duo throughout.
Brabham and Sharp won for the second straight year at Mosport; they were LMP2 victors last season.
“It’s a little ebb and flow,” said Sharp, a winner three times at Mosport in Trans-Am. “We think we gave a few races away this year. We definitely would have won at Long Beach and should have won Lime Rock. We helped contribute to (de Ferran’s) four-race win streak. To get a little bit of that back is a case of ‘what goes-around-can-come-around’. The team really rallied well at Lime Rock. We kept our heads up and wanted to keep doing what we’re doing. We rolled in here after Road America (an overall victory two weeks ago) with the same feeling.”
The sixth 1-2 finish for Acura in P1 was more than enough to wrap up the chassis and engine crowns. But there is more at stake for the two Acura teams. Brabham and Sharp extended their driver’s championship lead to 17 points with 55 points remaining over the next two events.
“We knew they were potentially going to have a problem in the race,” Brabham said of the de Ferran crew. “They had some issues in the practices, and we all talk. We were trying not to focus on them but focus on us and getting the job done.”
The Patrón Highcroft Acura also was the prototype winner of the MICHELIN® GREEN X® Challenge, an award for overall race performance and energy efficiency.
Intersport Racing’s Jon Field, who battled for the overall lead early with Gil de Ferran, and Clint Field placed third in P1 and fourth overall in their Lola B06/10-AER.
Fernandez and Diaz grabbed the class driver championship after a fantastic battle with Dyson Racing’s Marino Franchitti and Butch Leitzinger. The Dyson Lola B09/86-Mazda coupe led by less than a second with 12 minutes left before the engine let go and forced Leitzinger to pull the car off track and to a stop at Turn 2.
Franchitti had led the race overall early in his stint. The Lola-Mazda and the Acura went back and forth in the last hour, battling through slower - and faster - traffic. The victory (and championship) appeared in doubt after Fernandez was penalized for speeding in pit lane at the 2:10 running mark.
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