The sixth round of the 2025 VSCA SportsCar Championship brought the series to the fast and flowing Canadian Tire Motorsport Park for the Canadian Sports Car Grand Prix. Round four of the Sprint Cup and a marquee stop on the calendar, the 2.45-mile, 10-turn circuit in Bowmanville, Ontario, delivered yet another dramatic and unpredictable GT PRO battle—this time with a heavy helping of rain, contact, and post-race penalties.
While qualifying had seen Thomas D’Ambrosio in the #69 North Sim Racing McLaren 720S GT3 EVO claim a superb pole—his team’s first since COTA last season—the chaos that followed on race day would completely upend early expectations.
Early Incidents Shake Up the Running
Under mostly cloudy skies and 20°C ambient temperatures, the race began at 1:45 pm local time with D’Ambrosio holding the lead into urn 1. But trouble struck early for several contenders. Joao Pedro Teixeira (#917 PULSAR eSports McLaren) ran wide in Turn 2, while Marco Silva (#183 Blocco Motore Porsche) became a key player in a series of unfortunate events.
Silva first lost control in Turn 3, tagging the #12 Delta Racing BMW of Felypi Sauner. As the group entered Turn 4, Silva then made contact with Luis M. Díaz in the #151 World of SimRacing Porsche, sending the Spaniard wide into the grass. With no grip downhill into Moss Corner, Díaz’s return resulted in a collision involving all three cars in Turn 5.
From there, the action rarely relented. A dramatic incident at the 38-minute mark saw Manuel Mayer in the #84 Fischer Motorsport Porsche turn Adam Joseph Mailhot’s #158 LMP2 into the grass. Though Mayer continued, the contact earned the team a 30-second post-race penalty that would have major championship implications.
Weather Turns, and So Does the Race
A pivotal moment came 52 minutes in when a Full-Course Yellow was triggered—and with it, the skies opened. Rain began falling just as the caution flew, forcing teams into tricky strategy decisions. Some, including the leading #69 North Sim Racing McLaren, dove into the pits while they were closed, resulting in a costly drive-through penalty.
Others, like the #554 RedLab Corvette and #12 Delta Racing BMW, entered pit lane on fumes, also drawing drive-through penalties after the restart. Amid the confusion, the restart 86 minutes into the race saw the #67 Kinetic Racing Acura driven by Vincent L’Herbier lead the field, followed closely by Daniel Gruber in the #44 Fischer Motorsport Porsche.
But the treacherous track claimed more victims—Jukka Tainio in the #112 Rusty Spatulas Racing Corvette slid off in Turn 2, and contact between Travis Linscome-Hatfield's #68 TwoLemmaTree Racing McLaren and Pierro Leone's #69 North Sim Racing McLaren brought yet another post-race penalty, this time for the TwoLemmaTree team.
Strategy and Chaos in the Rain
With puddles forming and grip at a premium, a second Full-Course Yellow at 1 hour and 42 minutes again froze the field just as battles heated up. The thrilling scrap for third between Peter Spijkman in the #71 Sim City Racing Porsche and Benjamin Fischer in the #84 Fischer Motorsport Porsche was halted, while Gruber in the #44 Fischer Motorsport Porsche closed the gap to the #67 Kinetic Racing Acura at the front.
During the caution period, all major contenders dove into the pits to take service. The #71 Porsche came out on top and led the field to green, narrowly keeping the #67 Acura at bay in a dramatic near-touch in Turn 9. But two laps later, L’Herbier made a clean dive down the inside of Turn 1 to retake the lead.
He began building a margin while Spijkman, under relentless pressure, eventually ceded second place to Benjamin Fischer in the #84 Porsche after a mistake in Turn 2. Then things continued to turn dramatic: L’Herbier hydroplaned into a massive puddle in Turn 5 on lap 88, resulting in a wild slide, setting up a hard-nosed side-by-side battle between the #84 Porsche of Fischer and L'Herbier's #67 Acura, with Fischer taking the lead away.
Final-Lap Shock and Post-Race Shakeup
The closing laps remained tense, with the soaked track continuing to cause problems. But just as it looked like Benjamin Fischer would secure a sensational win from 13th on the grid, the 30-second post-race penalty for the #84 Porsche came into play.
To add one last twist, the #67 Acura ran out of fuel on the final lap, allowing Jay Van Meppelen in the sister #44 Fischer Porsche to storm past at the line. That dramatic overtake, paired with the #84’s penalty and the #67’s penalty for exceeding drive time, meant the #44 car was crowned the unexpected winner.
GT PRO championship leaders #71 Sim City Porsche of Peter Spijkman and Jason Allen took second place, showing great consistency and a clean drive, that solidifies their championship aspirations, while the #84 Fischer Motorsport Porsche was classified third.
Behind the top three finishers were the recovering #151 World of SimRacing Porsche in fourth, followed by the #554 RedLab Corvette in fifth. The #112 Rusty Spatulas Corvette, #68 TwoLemmaTree McLaren, #6 Torque Freak McLaren, #12 Delta Racing BMW, and the #917 PULSAR McLaren rounded out the top ten in a race full of shifting positions and survival stories.
Post-Race Reactions
Jay Van Meppelen, #44 Fischer Motorsport Porsche: "It's very cool to win here! My first win at CTMP, even though we have been coming here for a few years now; proud to win at my home track. Canadians have always been strong at motor racing; gotta represent! But I will say that this isn't the way we want to win a race, because we just did not have the same pace as the #84 and the #67 - those guys were on another level. I feel bad for both those teams on the penalties."
"Daniel and I are super pumped of course, about just nipping Kinetic by a bumper or less at the finish line there, for what we thought would be second place. I think they ran out of fuel or something because the gap was roughly five seconds or so at the beginning of the last lap. Anyway, like I said, we would rather have been faster than the 84 and 67 cars on the track, but we will take the win!"
On the strong performance of the Porsches in the rain: "Yeah, the Porsche is a strong car, particularly in the wet. We did some wet weather running in practice, and were able to settle on the adjustments we felt gave us the best possible traction. So we were prepared if the rain came."
"But i think a lot of it is just the nature of the car - engine sitting basically on the rear axle gives it some good traction out of the corners. The downside of that is it can be difficult to get the front end to bite going into the corner, but i think that has a lesser impact overall. The 84 car though, man, they were quick. We did not have the same pace as they did - they definitely found something that we were not able to find."
"This win gives us a good boost for sure. You know, the #71 has been superb this year. Very fast, very consistent. I think the level of competition from everyone has jumped this year. Just look at qualifying here at CTMP - 2 tenths was the difference between third and 11th on the grid. Now we have our first win here at CTMP! So, things are looking up. As far as defending the Sprint Cup title goes, we are going to give it all we got again this year!"
Daniel Gruber, #44 Fisher Motorsport Porsche: "I feel great about this win. To be honest, we did not expect it. For me it was the first race here at CTMP, so this is a positive surprise for sure. Also getting that first win of the season feels good. We had to wait for it some time and it was not from pure pace, but sometimes luck also plays a factor. But still, it is sad for everyone in the 84 to lose a race after it finished."
"Our strength has been the consistency, always scoring some points and not crashing out of a race completely. One good race could bring us even further the championship table."
Jason Allen, #71 Sim City Racing Porsche: "It is a great result and another example of staying patient and running our own race! This is so competitive that it seems a little weird that we are talking about a bounce back from VIR where we came home 5th, but given our previous results I guess you can say that."
"We preach patience, run our race and control what we can control - we know that managing the race and managing incidents is a big points factor so we try our best to do that each and every time out. We have sort of been points racing the last few races and that is our mindset as we really want to win this championship for everyone at SCR. Long ways to go though!"
Peter Spijkman, #71 Sim City Racing Porsche: "This feels like a good result after a difficult race for us. Both in VIR and here it rained which makes both the strategy and the driving a bit more difficult. I think you can see that during our pit stops. Our first stop was just before the FCY and we didn't think the track was wet enough so we just filled up some fuel. In hindsight that turned out not to be the right choice. After the second stop we were leading but then I made a few mistakes in T2 and Moss corner. All in all I think we can't complain with this result."
"I got in the car on a wet track and had some problems adapting to that. I also didn't want to take too many risks, but that put me under pressure. Then I also made some mistakes that made us fall back in the order which wasn't ideal. Towards the end of the race I still wanted to get P4 and I drove a strong pace. Then I also regained some of my confidence in the rain."
Benjamin Fischer, #84 Fischer Motorsport Porsche: "Man, losing the win like that. That's tough. I won't stand here and lie to you. But I guess the positives we can take away from this race is, that we had a strong pace to compete for the win. In all fairness, I don't think we'd have been as competitive in the dry. Our Porsche 911 GT3 R and our setup was just phenomenal in the rain."
"I've got to give credit to the team, especially Manny, and all the setup work that went into this race. Big thanks also to Porsche, ACRP, EAGLE Race Simulators and Fischernetz Design, for their support. Congrats to the guys in the 44 on winning this one. They ran a heck of a race, too. Tough luck for the Kinetic guys, running out of fuel there at the end, that's tough. I'm glad we still got P3 out of this, under the circumstances."
Championship Implications
With the dust-or rather rain-settled, all eyes turned to the standings. The #71 Sim City Racing Porsche maintains its commanding lead atop both the GT PRO SportsCar Championship and Sprint Cup, though the #44 Fischer Motorsport Porsche's victory moved them into second place in the Sprint Cup. The #84 Fischer Motorsport Porsche, despite losing the win, still holds second in the series championship and third in the Sprint Cup.
Looking ahead
GT PRO teams will now enjoy a break, as the series travels to Detroit Belle Isle, to host LMP2 and GT AM teams. The GT PRO group of teams returns to action for the fourth annual Six Hours of the Glen on June 21 at Watkins Glen, for the third round of the 2025 VSCA Endurance Cup.
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