The #25 BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 of Connor De Phillippi (USA) and Nick Yelloly (GBR) secured a third-place finish at the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP, CAN), marking the team’s fourth podium of the 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season and their 100th podium in history. Currently, De Phillippi and Yelloly are in second place in the GTP driver point standings, with BMW standing in second place in the GTP class manufacturer points.
The duo completed 119 laps, finishing 19 seconds behind the #60 Acura ARX-06. Yelloly started the race and pitted early for fuel only, putting them on a different strategy than their competitors. As the other cars made their pit stops, Yelloly cycled into the lead. De Phillippi took over on lap 55 and pitted for fuel only on lap 68. The race had three more cautions in the final one-hour-and-forty minutes, allowing De Phillippi to secure the third-place podium finish.
Augusto Farfus (BRA) and Philipp Eng (AUT) had a challenging race and finished eighth. They were stuck in the rear of the field for most of the race and both incurred drive-through penalties. Farfus and Eng currently stand in eighth place in the driver points, with their best finish of the season being fourth place at Long Beach in the #24 car.
In the GTD class, Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow (both USA) extended their GTD driver points lead by winning their third race of the season in the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3. Bill Auberlen and Chandler Hull (both USA) finished fifth in the Turner Motorsport #97 BMW M4 GT3. Unfortunately, the #96 BMW M4 GT3 of Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher (both USA) had to retire from the race due to collision damage.
The next race for GTD class BMWs will be at Lime Rock Park (USA) on July 22nd. The next race for the GTP class will take place at Road America (USA) on August 6th.
Quotes after the race:
Bobby Rahal (Team Principal BMW M Team RLL): “I’m really impressed. The guys with the #25 car pulled off a great strategy. We weren’t the fastest car by any means, and yet our strategy really worked out and Connor did a great job of staying ahead of everybody at the end. It just shows you that you can never count yourself out.”
Connor De Phillippi (#25 BMW M Hybrid V8, 3rd place): “Another podium for us in the #25 car, so it was a good day. Obviously, we didn’t have quite the pace that we needed, so the team tried a great strategy and with a little bit of luck, we managed to get up in the top three. So proud of everybody on the team to put us in this position and happy it all worked out today.”
Nick Yelloly (#25 BMW M Hybrid V8, 3rd place): “P3 here today was not expected to be honest. We really struggled all weekend with the car being quite difficult to drive particularly over the bumps at a track that we’ve not been to before, so this was as good as we could have hoped. Great job by the strategy team. Great job by Connor to obviously keep it on the black part.”
Augusto Farfus (#24 BMW M Hybrid V8, 8th place): “I think today we just tried to do the maximum with what we had. Unfortunately, we were not lucky with the strategy so then there was not much to do. So we take the lesson, take the mileage and focus on the next race.”
Philipp Eng (#24 BMW M Hybrid V8, 8th place): “Unfortunately, quite an unlucky race for us. The yellows didn’t work for our race. But on the flip side, anything can happen and we saw it again with the #25. They had a trouble-free race. They had good pace and finished on the podium, so many congratulations to the team.”