Podium Finish for Timothé Buret on the Streets of Toronto
Toronto, Canada – Juncos Racing’s Garett Grist scored his first win of the 2015 Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires this past weekend in Round 11 on the Streets of Toronto. Teammate Timothé Buret picked up a podium finish in Round 10. Juncos Racing maintains the lead in the 2015 Pro Mazda championship standings.
Buret and José Gutiérrez kicked off the weekend in Toronto topping the speed charts finishing first and second in the first practice session. Canadian Grist continued the strong run for the team qualifying second in the #5 BlackList/Lander Property Management car, missing the pole by only 0.0056 seconds.
Round 10 of the Pro Mazda Championship didn’t go smoothly from the start for the 18-car field with a major accident on Lap 1 involving six cars. The first lap incident unfortunately collected Juncos Racing’s Will Owen, driving the #23 AMR car, and Gutiérrez, driving the #7 Prisma car. Frenchman Buret driving the #6 BroadSign car, qualified sixth, worked his way through the field in the shortened race to score a podium finish, taking third. Teammate Grist settled for fifth.
The weekend concluded under wet conditions during Round 11 on the Streets of Toronto. Grist, who started from the pole position for the first time this year, went on to score his first victory of the 2015 season in front of his home crowd. Gutiérrez picked up a Top-5 finish taking fifth while teammates Buret and Owen rounded out the Top-10 with a seventh and eighth place finish.
Juncos Racing Team Principle, Ricardo Juncos was pleased to see Grist earn his first victory of the season along with Buret recording another podium finish.
”Garett (Grist) was on point all weekend long,” said Juncos. “He (Grist) had his strongest qualifying performance of the year, which he converted into a victory. The team believes that Garett can carry this newfound momentum into the remaining races and potentially challenge for the championship. Tim (Buret) managed to gain some ground on the points leader in his championship hunt with yet another podium finish. The drivers were faced with very difficult conditions, despite the challenge of the rain they were all able to bring the cars home in Race 2.”
Driver Quotes:
Timothé Buret (Montpellier, France): “We had good moments and bad moments this weekend at Toronto. I started sixth for Race 1 and was able to finish on the podium in third. For Race 2 I started fifth and the race was in the rain, which are difficult conditions to race in. I was able to move up to third after some other drivers made mistakes and then I made a mistake on the front straight which cost me a lot of time and I dropped back to eighth and finished seventh. I’m going to go after and attack the championship and keep from making mistakes that could cost points. I can’t wait to get back on track next month at Iowa.”
Garett Grist (Grimsby, Ontario, Canada): “Toronto was a great weekend for us! We were consistently fast all weekend and were able to qualify second and first. In Race 1 I overheated the front brakes and only had rear brakes for half of the race which really hurt me. In Race 2 I was able to lead a lot of laps and win the race! It was so great to be able to win in front of my family and friends at my home race. The Juncos Racing guys did a great job all weekend and gave me a great car.”
José Gutiérrez (Monterrey, Mexico): “It was an up and down weekend for the #7 Juncos Racing car. In Race 1 I was involved in some carnage in Turn 3 that I couldn’t do anything about. I felt bad for the team because we had an awesome car for the race. In Race 2 my objective was to finish the race and to push for a good result. I started eighth and finished fifth in very difficult conditions. This was my best result in wet conditions and I was happy to earn that. We are going to Iowa on a positive note and I look forward to Mid-Ohio where I had a great result last year.”
Will Owen (Castle Rock, Colorado, USA): “Unfortunately Toronto didn’t go as we had hoped for. We did alright in qualifying, but I missed one corner which caused us to qualify eighth instead of being on the front row. Race 1 ended on a bad note for us when I was run over and had no control of what was going on around me ending our day. Race 2 it rained and I had a decent run finishing eighth even though it’s not what we were looking for, but it’s a good result for the team and the championship. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season and being back on the podium.”