De Angelis Dominates Again in Third Straight Weekend Sweep

Roman De Angelis is in a league of his own this year in Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Yokohama, as showcased once again this past weekend at Indy Toronto.

In a rare statistical feat, De Angelis started from the pole position in both rounds of the doubleheader weekend after having posted the two fastest laps in Saturday’s qualifying- with both Laps 8 and 9 being an identical time of 1:12.966.

The first instance scored him the pole for Race 1 on Saturday, while the second scored him the pole for Race 2 – for which the grid is set by either a driver’s second quickest qualifying lap or their fastest lap in Race 1 – whichever is fastest.

On Sunday, the 18-year-old from Belle River, Ontario, took ownership of the lead from the drop of the green flag and proceeded on to another flag-to-flag victory as he did on Saturday.

It was De Angelis’ third consecutive weekend sweep in GT3 Cup Challenge Canada and seventh consecutive victory through eight rounds of the season.

As De Angelis describes, the only difference between his Race 1 win on Saturday and his Race 2 victory on Sunday was the weather.

Drivers faced mixed weather conditions for the first race of the doubleheader, while Sunday offered sunny skies and higher temperatures.

With four rounds remaining in the 2019 season, De Angelis holds a strong lead in the GT3 Cup Challenge Canada championship.

The next two rounds will take place at Road America on August 2 – 4, which will be the second and final joint event of the year with Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by Yokohama, which De Angelis also competes in.

The first came in June at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, which was De Angelis first doubleheader victory of the GT3 Cup Challenge Canada season.

Finishing second on the podium in both races at Indy Toronto was Jeff Kingsley in the No. 16 Policaro Motorsport Porsche.

Third on the leaderboard and also earning the Yokohama Tire Hard Charger Award for gaining the most positions during the 45-minute race was Michael Di Meo in the No. 96 Porsche for OpenRoad Racing. Di Meo, at his hometown event, started seventh on the grid but ended up on the podium, even despite a scratch against the wall to start the race.

Meanwhile, following in the footsteps of his Mark Motors teammate, Marco Cirone in the No. 88 Porsche scored his fourth consecutive Platinum Masters victory, after sweeping the weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park last week and doing so again this weekend at Indy Toronto.

Cirone is in search of his sixth GT3 Cup Challenge Canada Platinum Masters championship

An incident early in the race halted on-track action for about 10 minutes, with the No. 99 Kelly-Moss/AM Motorsports Porsche Alan Metni scraping the wall and careening into the back of Patrick Dussault’s No. 77 Lauzon Autosport Porsche.

While both cars made strong impact into the Turn 9 tire barriers, each driver was able to walk away.

RESULTS: Race 2