Chevrolet Grand Prix 2026 Practice Results:
LMP2, GTD PRO & GTD Combined Times

Practice 1 ran 90 minutes and covered almost everything a team engineer would want to see — fast laps, tyre behaviour data, two Safety Car-level interruptions, and a benchmark from Ricky Taylor that already beats the outright CTMP lap record set by Matt McMurry back in 2019.

The session opened in warm, humid conditions — consistent with a CTMP summer weekend where the paddock setup crew had already been scrambling to cover equipment under threatening skies on Thursday. By Friday afternoon, however, the track was dry and the lap times dropped fast.

Taylor, making only a guest appearance in LMP2 — normally he campaigns in the GTP class — adapted quickly. “Like anything, it takes a little while for that muscle memory to come back and I’ve never driven an LMP2 car here,” Taylor noted after the session. “The car feels so nice, like the DPi cars we raced here up through 2022. It’s even better in some places — this track really lets these cars perform at their best, with all the high-speed corners. It’s really cool.”

Two red flags interrupted the session. Both came at the Moss Corner complex — one when Lorenzo Patrese in the No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO went off approaching the corner and hit the barrier, and a second when Callum Ilott’s No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R went off at the same location shortly after. Both cars returned to the track, but both drivers will lose their fastest lap times in qualifying as a result of the incidents.

Ricky Taylor set the LMP2 benchmark in stunning fashion, lapping CTMP at 130.029 mph — quicker than the circuit record on a track Taylor admitted he’d never driven in an LMP2 car before. The BHA/PR1 Mathiasen partnership made the right call bringing the multi-series champion in as a stand-in for the regular Cadillac driver Misha Goikhberg’s co-driver spot.

Second in class was Sebastian Álvarez in the No. 8 Tower Motorsports ORECA — 0.098 seconds back at 1:08.178. Tower Motorsports enters the CTMP weekend as a strong contender; Álvarez has been consistently quick all season and the No. 8 team has the setup data from previous CTMP appearances. Third was Alex Quinn in the No. 04 CrowdStrike by APR ORECA at 1:08.287, which is the points leader heading into this weekend after three top-five finishes in the first three LMP2 rounds.

Ben Hanley — a guest driver this weekend filling in for Paul Di Resta in the No. 22 United Autosports USA entry — slotted into fourth, while Tom Dillmann in the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition car completed the top five. The AO Racing No. 99 car, which won at Watkins Glen and holds a share of second in the championship, finished eighth of the nine cars that ran.

GTD PRO delivered the tightest class battle of the session. Antonio García, a five-time WeatherTech champion and three-time CTMP winner, set the benchmark in 1:15.877 in the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R. However, just 0.029 seconds separated him from the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 of Ben Barnicoat.

That margin — barely more than the blink of an eye — tells you everything about how competitive GTD PRO is at CTMP in 2026. Barnicoat and the Watkins Glen–winning No. 14 Lexus arrived at Canada as one of the form entries of recent weeks, with three poles in the last four races. Running this close to García’s proven Corvette on their first afternoon is a statement from the Vasser Sullivan operation.

Third and fourth in class were the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO (Neil Verhagen) and the No. 4 Corvette (Tommy Milner) respectively — continuing Corvette Racing’s strong showing overall. The biggest surprise of the GTD PRO session was fifth position going to the No. 068 Car Blanche Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, a one-off GTD PRO appearance for this entry after a debut in GTD at Watkins Glen. Valentin Hasse-Clot was less than 0.3 seconds behind García — a genuinely impressive showing for a car in only its second IMSA appearance.

Pfaff Motorsports and its No. 9 Lamborghini Temerario GT3 — the Canadian team seeking their first GTD PRO win with the new Lambo platform — ran in mid-pack during the session. Andrea Caldarelli and David Pittard are motivated by racing at Pfaff’s home circuit but are still searching for the setup that will give them a serious shot at the front row.

The most intriguing number from Practice 1 doesn’t belong to any LMP2 car or GTD PRO entry. It belongs to Philip Ellis in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO, who posted a 1:15.860 — 0.017 seconds quicker than GTD PRO class leader Antonio García’s 1:15.877. In a session where the GT classes ran together, the GTD car was genuinely faster than the GT3 Pro entry.

Ellis’ time of 116.693 mph marks him out immediately as a qualifying threat. However, context matters here. Practice 1 lap times are always treated with some caution in multi-class IMSA sessions, given the different fuel loads and tyre preparation strategies each team deploys. Whether Ellis can replicate that pace in qualifying — with full competitive pressure and a fresh set of tyres from the same compound — will tell the real story.

Second in GTD was Albert Costa in the No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO, though his co-driver Lorenzo Patrese was the one who brought out the session’s first red flag when he went off at Moss Corner. As a result, the No. 34 Ferrari will lose its fastest lap for qualifying — a significant penalty given how close the class times are.

Robert Wickens, returning to the IMSA WeatherTech Championship at his home circuit for the first time since the Long Beach round, ran the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette Z06 GT3.R. Wickens, who grew up attending races at CTMP as a child, was eager to deliver a result for DXDT after the team’s difficult season that included a transporter fire that took them out of action for several rounds. Eduardo “Dudu” Barrichello — who holds a 157-point lead in the GTD standings heading into this weekend — was in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin alongside fill-in Roman De Angelis. They ran without incident and gathered useful long-run data heading into qualifying.

The combined timesheet puts the full session into context. LMP2 cars comfortably separate from the GT runners by approximately seven seconds per lap — reflecting the fundamental difference in aerodynamic platform and power-to-weight ratio between the ORECA prototypes and GT3-spec machinery. Within the GT groups, however, the margins are genuinely extraordinary.

All three days at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park are packed. Here’s the complete confirmed session-by-session schedule with all times in Eastern Time (ET). For fans watching on Peacock, all WeatherTech Championship sessions are available in the US. The main race also airs on USA Network.