Morad Takes Dominant Race 1 Win

Photo: Brian Cleary/PWC

Daniel Morad has claimed a dominant flag-to-flag victory in Saturday’s opening Pirelli World Challenge GT Sprint race of the weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

The Canadian took his No. 2 CRP Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 to a 4.576-second win over the No. 24 Alegra Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Michael Christensen, in a wet-turned dry race.

The race was delayed by more than two hours due to fog.

“I’m really happy to deliver the team’s first win of the year,” Morad said. “I think it was a long time coming, due to the bad luck we’ve had in the past races.

“We’re quick for pole positions, but never delivering that final product with the race win and do it in front of my home track fans is really nice.

“I’ve won here in the past, and to do it again is really cool. I hope to do it again tomorrow.”

While several cars opted to make pit stops to change to slicks, the majority of the leaders remained on the Pirelli P-Zero rain tires as they started the 50-minute race on.

A spirited battle for second in the closing stages went the way of Christensen, with the No. 31 TR3 Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 of Daniel Mancinelli completing the podium in third.

Mancinelli charged from fifth on the grid to contend for the podium early in the running, getting by championship leader Scott Hargrove, who faded to fourth in the closing stages of the caution-free race.

Toni Vilander, meanwhile, completed the top-five in the No. 61 R. Ferri Motorsport Ferrari.

Chase Holds Off Fuentes for Maiden GTA Win

Parker Chase held off a hard-charging Martin Fuentes to claim his first career PWC win.

Chase narrowly edged out the No. 07 Scuderia Garage Italia Ferrari by 0.559 seconds for top class honors in his No. 19 TruSpeed Autosport Audi R8 LMS.

The 17-year-old qualified an impressive fourth overall, came home sixth in the ten-car GT/GTA field.

Alvaro Parente, who along with K-PAX Racing teammate Rodrigo Baptista, will start tomorrow’s race from the front row after setting the two quickest laps in the race due to changing to slicks.

Race 2 is set to get underway Sunday at 4:05 p.m. ET.

RESULTS: Race 1

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John