Lotus Alex Job Racing (AJR) is heading north to the newly branded Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (formerly Mosport International Raceway) for the American Le Mans Series Mobil 1 Grand Prix of Mosport to be run Sun., July 22. Drivers Bill Sweedler (Westport, Conn.) and Townsend Bell (San Luis Obispo, Calif.) come into the event with fifty-percent knowledge of the 2.4-mile, 10-turn track that was the home of the Canadian Grand Prix for many years.
Sweedler has a lot of laps at the track located 30-minutes north of Toronto. He finished on the podium in an Alex Job Racing Porsche in 2010.
“The Canadian fans are always out in big numbers supporting the ALMS and I’m excited to be back again this year,” Sweedler said. “Our Battery Tender, Yokohama, William Rast Lotus Evora GT is improving dramatically as we enter each new ALMS event. Alex (Job, team principal), Greg (Fordahl, engineer) and the entire team, whether at the track or back in Tavares, continue to work tirelessly on the set-up, chassis development, and recently, aero enhancements that will improve the performance of the Lotus. We are optimistic that we will be ready for the high-speed challenges of Mosport and I look forward to the continued development of the car.”
Teammate Bell will be making his first visit to Mosport. He is more than up to the challenge of learning a new circuit, especially one with so much history.
“This will be my first time running at Mosport,” Bell said. “I am aware of the rich Formula 1 and sports car history of the track. I also have been hearing about the great downhill Turn Two and complex of turns that follow. For a racer, Mosport is one of the spiritual centers of the sport. I have been spending lots of time on the CXC simulator trying to a get a feel for the flow of the circuit. It is amazing how much that helps these days. I am also looking at some in-car video from previous years. The team has a lot of laps at Mosport as well as a lot of success that I can draw from to reduce the learning curve.”
The team is developing the Evora GT as they race through the season. A lot of work took place since the last race at Laguna Seca and the team is starting to see some of the fruits of their labor with a top ten finish at the tough 1.5-mile Lime Rock track.
Team principal, Alex Job, and the team are heading into a string of natural road courses that will help with the development of the Lotus Evora GT.
“We are in the heart of our natural terrain road course schedule,” Job said. “With Mosport, Mid-Ohio and Road America all in front of us, this is where the development of the Lotus Evora GT will pay off for the future. These are long tracks with a combination of turns that are great for developing a car. Our plan is to keep making incremental improvements and see what we have come Petit Le Mans. We have our work cut out for us. These tracks also have some very long straights that don’t really suit the engine package we are running. However we have plenty of other things to work on.”
Source : Lotus Alex Job Racing