Mario Farnbacher (Germany) and Alex Riberas (Spain) finished today’s running of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix run at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP) in 12th in GTD.
The Heart of Racing Porsche duo started the two-hour-and-forty-five-minute race from the pole position in GTD. Pole winner Riberas had the wheel of the No. 22 Porsche for the start. Taking the green the Spaniard was able to increase his lead by matching the handling of the GT3 R to the passing opportunities around the 2.4-mile, 10-turn undulating CTMP natural terrain road course. He handed the car off to teammate Farnbacher at the one-hour mark with a 16-second lead. Farnbacher proceeded to move around the top three in GTD as team’s continued to play out their strategy. An hour-and-forty-minutes into the race he reported a vibration. Two turns later the left front wheel left the car due to an issue with the wheel hub.
“Very disappointing finish for us,” Riberas said. “We were leading the race by 16-seconds when I pitted. I was very confident that we could go for the win today. The car felt absolutely amazing. The Alex Job Racing crew did a magnificent job to maximize the car here this weekend. We were ready to fight for the win. Mario had the wheel problem and went several laps down. We were lucky to get some points toward the championship. We won’t give up.”
“Alex had a great start to the race,” Farnbacher said. “Alex was able to run good clean laps with pace and he gave me the car in the lead. I got in and the car was really good. On the back straight I had a vibration. I was going in to Turn 8, it felt ok with a little vibration. Then I tried to brake for Turn 9 and it wasn’t stopping. Tough way to finish with a very good car today.”
“Tough way to go today for Mario and Alex,” Alex Job, team owner, said. “Alex did a very good job at the start. He was managing the traffic and was able to get a nice gap for the pit stop to hand over to Mario. We then had an issue with the wheel, the hub area. We will get with Porsche and see what happened. A difficult finish to what was looking like a very good day.”
The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will travel to Lime Rock Park in Connecticut for the Northeast Grand Prix, July 22-23.