Cadillac Racing drivers Andy Pilgrim and Johnny O’Connell are ready for pivotal rounds nine and ten of the Pirelli World Challenge Series Honda Indy Toronto through the streets of Exhibition Place, July 18-20.

This weekend represents the last of four World Challenge street racing events on the schedule. Cadillac Racing has ruled the streets in the series so far. O’Connell (Flowery Branch, Ga.) has three wins, one at Long Beach and two at Detroit in four of the street races to date and is the GT points leader heading north of the border.  Teammate Pilgrim (Boca Raton, Fla.) also has impressed on the closed street courses with three second place finishes in the four races and is currently fourth in the point standings. The 1.75-mile, 11-turn Toronto circuit that surrounds Exhibition place may play a pivotal role in this year’s GT championship. The street event represents a lot more to the Cadillac Racing duo. The remaining events on the World Challenge calendar are all natural terrain road courses where the FIA GT3 specification cars have showed their might.

Johnny O’Connell
“Toronto is a critical event for us,” O’Connell said. “We’ve shown that on street circuits we can compete against the GT3 cars, so I cannot stress enough the need for us to execute and perform this weekend in Toronto. We have an advantage in knowing how our cars run on the Toronto circuit and we’ve had a good street set-up. I plan to use that to my advantage.”

“The Toronto circuit is very challenging,” he continued. “Lots of surface changes that test both driver and engineer. These surface changes are combined with bumpy areas that should work to the advantage or our Cadillac CTS.V.R. The track is fun to drive and fun to race on.”
 
“Like every weekend it could be anyone out front,” O’Connell explained. “The Audi has been really strong lately, but I also expect the Ferrari and Porsche to be tough. And of course the new Bentley was strong at Road America. That car is doing great in Europe and with Dyson Racing preparing the car it’s just a matter of time for them.”

Pilgrim likes the way the Toronto layout suits the Cadillac CTS.V.R.

Andy Pilgrim
“The Toronto race this year should be one of the best remaining tracks for Cadillac,” Pilgrim said. “I don’t believe there is any guarantee we will do well, but we have done well there before and the track does suit our cars.  We did not have any of the GT3 cars there last year and they are getting much faster by the race, so I think we will have to push really hard from practice one, turn one and keep pushing to through both races.”

“I really like the Toronto layout,” he continued. “I have only raced there a few times over the years and have been fortunate to do well.  The track seems to suit my driving style with lots of fast blind corners. I’m not quite sure if that’s a good thing for me to be liking, but I do.  We certainly rely heavily on the corner workers there and they do an amazing job for us.”
 
“Johnny and I had a great one-two finish there last year,” Pilgrim explained. “The GT3 cars are getting much faster now, as we knew they would. Johnny and I could not even get into the top three in fastest race lap times at Road America.  I think the Audi R8s will be quick again with Mike Skeen leading the way.  Also, the Bentley should be really suited to this track, it showed at Road America it has major straight line speed and big torque out the corners to go along with its GT3 downforce, they will be very tough.”
 
The Pirelli World Challenge Series Honda Indy at Toronto will air on the NBC Sports Network, Sunday, August 10 at 1:30 p.m. Qualifying will take the green flag on Friday, July 18 at 4:35 p.m., race one will take the standing start on Saturday, July 19 at 11:35 a.m. with race two going off on Sunday, July 20 at 12:15 p.m.