Heartbreak for Gradient Racing as Technical Issue costs Victory in Canada!

A heartbreaking technical issue denied Gradient Racing a potential IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory on the series annual trip north of the border to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Having made an ambitious call not to pit under a full-course caution on the one-hour mark, the #66 JG Wentworth HPD Acura NSX GT3 Evo 22 appeared to be on a perfect strategy to give Sheena Monk and Katherine Legge a sensational win, only for fate to intervene.

Having spent practice finding their feet, Katherine – competing at the circuit formerly known as Mosport Park for the first time since 2019 – and Sheena, a GT3 debutant at the track, were optimistic about finishing far higher than their 12th place on the grid.

It looked like they were right too as Newtown, PA, native Sheena climbed several places during her stint and handed the Acura over to Katherine in seventh spot at the 40-minute mark.

It was not long afterwards that the race was neutralised under Full-Course-Yellow conditions due to an incident on track; Gradient’s strategy team opting not to follow the rest of the GTD-class cars into the pits and instead to stay out and take the lead.

Once released, Katherine stormed away from the field, building a four-second lead before pitting under green-flag conditions 15 minutes later.

Resuming 11th, but comfortably on the lead lap and safe in the knowledge that she alone had sufficient fuel to reach the finish without another stop, her prayers were answered when a further FCY was declared shortly afterwards.

While this ought to have bunched the field together, ensuring that the Atlanta-based Brit would pass them as they stopped for fuel, Katherine instead pitted herself due to an issue with a rear brake caliper.

Repairs cost eight laps and any chance of an historic all-female GTD win, but she was able to resume and finish 11th.

The series continues back in the USA at Lime Rock Park, CT, on July 21-22.

Sheena Monk said: Today’s such a sad case of what might have been. The JG Wentworth Acura felt great underneath me and the tyres switched on really quickly at the start, which allowed me to make some passes on the drivers around me. We were in a fighting position, 100 percent and Kat was moving forward until she had an unfortunate brake situation that meant she had to make an unplanned pitstop for service that took us out of contention. It’s heartbreaking because I felt we were knocking on the door of something special today.

Katherine Legge said: It was a disappointing result for the amount of promise that we showed. We wanted to carry the momentum from Watkins into ctmp. And I think we almost did that. Sheena and I had a great run at the start to put us inside the top 10. And it looked like even though we were off strategy with the majority of the field, we would still have a top five result out of it. We enjoyed leading for a while. But unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. The guys all did an incredible job to get us back out and get us to finish in some points. And I think that again, we showed that we've just been unlucky and races this year and we are always in contention