Robichon Closes Out Canada Season With 11th Win of 12

From start to finish, the final Ultra 94 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by Yokohama race of the season belonged to series champion Zacharie Robichon.

On an overcast Sunday morning at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, and one day after he clinched the Platinum class title, Robichon started from the pole position and led flag-to-flag to capture his 11th Porsche GT3 Cup Canada victory of the season’s 12 races.

“This weekend has been good, and stressful to be honest,” said Robichon. “When I got here, I knew yesterday all I needed to do was finish second to clinch the championship. But because of that I don’t think I drove my best yesterday and I was looking in the rearview mirror a little too much. Today, I didn’t want to do that.

“And I didn’t feel like yesterday was the proper way to end the championship with the way the race ended with the red flag. So today I wanted to do it properly and give a proper send off for what the team deserved just because they’ve been fantastic this year and this is all about them.”

The only race Robichon didn’t finish atop the podium this season was Round 5 at Circuit Villes Gillenueve in Montreal in June, which saw the victory go to his teammate Roman De Angelis in the No. 78 Porsche.

On Sunday, De Angelis took his second runner-up finish of the weekend after starting from the fourth position.

The 17-year-old finished 44 points and runner-up to Robichon in the championship standings.

Policaro Motorsport teammates Michael Di Meo in the No. 35 Porsche and Jeff Kingsley in the No. 16 Porsche were within a second of each other for the entirety of the 45-minute race, as Kingsley was eager for Di Meo’s third-place position.

The latter, however, was able to hold on to third to score his second podium of the year.

While a first-lap spin took Remo Ruscitti out of contention for the victory, the Vancouver native rebounded from the back of the pack to finish sixth in the No. 96 OpenRoad Racing Porsche, which he stole from Stefan Rzadzinski in the No. 8 DFC Motorsport/Speedstar Motorsport Porsche on the last lap.

Taking the Platinum Masters class victory was Perry Bortolotti in the No. 84 Mark Motors Racing Porsche.

Bortolotti scored each of the six Platinum Masters victories he contested this season and finished second in the class’ championship standings behind Martin Harvey in the No. 08 Wingho Racing/Porsche Prestige race car, who clinched the title during Saturday’s race at CTMP.

Both the Gold class victory and the Yokohama Hard Charger Award for gaining the most positions during the race went to driver Marco Cirone in the No. 18 Porsche, also for Mark Motors Racing.

Cirone swept the weekend’s Gold class races, bringing his total number of Gold class victories of the year up to four.

He tied Michel Bonnet for the Gold class championship with four wins apiece, yet the tiebreaker was determined by the driver who achieved the highest result first during the season, which was Bonnet at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve back in June.

Cirone’s first victory came the next race weekend at Honda Indy Toronto.

RESULTS: Race 2