Tequila Patron ESM will field only a single Nissan Onroak DPi in this weekend’s Mobil 1 Sportscar Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, due to lack of available spare engines following a trouble-filled outing at Watkins Glen.
Both of the team’s Nissan DPis retired in Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen with engine failures, with the No. 22 car also having underwent a change to its 3.8-liter twin-turbo V6 powerplant following qualifying on Saturday.
Ryan Dalziel and Pipo Derani will drive the solo No. 22 entry in the two-hour and 40-minute race, leaving Johannes van Overbeek and Scott Sharp on the sidelines for the seventh round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.
“Due to our spare engine availability after this weekend we have decided to focus all of our available resources and run just one car at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park,” Sharp said.
“Ryan and Pipo will share the driving duties and we look to rebound in a seriously positive way. CTMP has always been a strong track for Tequila Patrón ESM.”
Sharp and Dalziel scored a podium finish at CTMP last year, one race prior to the team’s breakthrough first win with the DPi car.
Watkins Glen marked ESM’s second double-retirement of the year, in what came as one of its most challenging weekends to date.
“The boys have had to change three engines during this weekend and it certainly was no easy task considering the heat,” Derani said.
“I hope Ryan and I can deliver a strong result at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, in what will be our first race together since Watkins Glen last year, to give those boys something to be happy about.”
Performance Tech Questionable for CTMP
The Prototype field could be further reduced for CTMP, with the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports Oreca 07 Gibson a question following heavy damage sustained from Joel Miller’s race-ending accident at Watkins Glen.
Contact was made between Miller and the No. 54 CORE autosport Oreca in the fourth hour, which sent the car hard into the barriers.
Team principal Brent O’Neill admitted post-race that it remains unclear if the car could be repaired in time for the second race of back-to-back events.
“I’m not 100 percent sure how this will carry over to Mosport,” he said. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done on the car right now, so we’ll see how this all plays out.”