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Team Cadillac and O’Connell Take Season-Best Result at Mosport Speedfest

2011-05-23

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Bowmanville, Ontario – With General Motors North America President Mark Reuss among a strong contingent of Team Cadillac supporters at Mosport International Raceway on Saturday, Johnny O’Connell scored the best result for the Cadillac CTS-V since its return to the Pirelli World Challenge Championships this season with a second-place run in the first race of a doubleheader weekend at the Victoria Day Speedfest.

O’Connell – who also posted the fastest lap in the 50-minute timed race with a lap at 108.999 mph (1:21.215) – led a second consecutive double top-five performance for Team Cadillac ahead of teammate Andy Pilgrim, who finished fifth. The teammates finished fourth and fifth at Utah’s Miller Motorsports Park earlier this month.

O’Connell started the No. 3 CTS-V from third on the grid for the fifth round of the 12-race 2011 World Challenge season and got a good jump when the lights went out for the standing start to move into second place. He eventually surrendered the position to the Corvette of Patrick Lindsey, but O’Connell later benefited when Lindsey encountered a problem on the 20^th lap of what would be a 30-lap event to return to second place.

O’Connell then set out after race leader Mike Skeen’s yellow Corvette and the No. 3 Cadillac was the fastest car on the circuit as the laps wound down. He managed to close to within a second of Skeen with a few minutes remaining, but slower traffic gave Skeen just enough of a gap and O’Connell settled for second. He crossed the stripe 2.506 seconds behind the race winner to match the best run of his World Challenge career to date.

“I was chomping,” O’Connell said. “I used to drive a yellow Corvette for 10 years, so if there was one car I wanted to get by, it was him. We had a couple of good runs and (crew chief) Mike (West) was cheering me on, but there was one time where I was getting close enough and then I had two touring cars side-by-side all the way through (Turn) 8. We took a lot of chances, but that was not a place to take a big chance. Mikey gave me a great car, as he has done all year long. One of my old bosses told me, ‘Don’t hit anything, don’t break anything, stay on the racetrack and good things happen,’ and we had a great Cadillac today.”

While O’Connell got a great jump to move into second at the start, Pilgrim wasn’t as fortunate from his fourth-place starting spot the No. 8 CTS-V. He lost valuable ground when Lindsey stumbled briefly as the lights went out and Pilgrim was sixth at the end of the opening lap. He dropped back to seventh on a Lap-18 restart following the race’s only full-course caution period, but he fought his way back over the closing laps to score fifth at the checkered flag.

“Patrick Lindsey got a pretty bad start and there was almost enough room but not enough room to go by him on the left and at least get level with him,” Pilgrim explained. “He wasn’t meaning to do anything, but it just meant that I couldn’t go and I had to lift. As soon as I lifted, (James) Sofronas went by and Patrick Long went by, so I was behind those two right off the bat. If I would have been ahead of them, I could have stayed behind Johnny and we would have been fine. It was a shame, but good for Johnny. It’s a good deal. A podium is nice.”

O’Connell finishes on the podium for second straight day

In what was nearly a stunning repeat of Saturday’s fifth round of the Pirelli World Challenge Series at Mosport International Raceway, both Cadillac CTS-V Coupes wound up in the top five at the end of the day.

Johnny O’Connell finished on the podium again in third, and Andy Pilgrim was battling for the top five on the last lap and got it when a rival ran out of fuel. O’Connell was second on Saturday, his best career finish in the series and the best for Team Cadillac this season.

O’Connell left the starting line in third place, and battled with early leader Mike Skeen’s Corvette and the Porsche of second-place Patrick Long over the 29-lap distance.

“We just didn’t have enough for those guys,” O’Connell said when it was over. “I don’t know whether Porsche found another number on their map switch or what, but they showed dramatic improvement overnight. We had a good car. Actually, we might have even run faster than we did yesterday.

A multi-car crash on lap 22 brought out a full-course caution, and the track never went back to green-flag racing. It finished under caution, as the white and yellow flags waved simultaneously.

“If they’d gone green, I think I might have had something, because on clear laps, we were pretty darn close, but it didn’t happen. I’m just stoked for everybody at Cadillac. I mean, we have moved forward. We are six races into this gig and to get on the podium twice this weekend, we’re constantly improving and that’s been our objective all along.”

Pilgrim still managed to pick up a position at the finish, due to James Sofronas running his Porsche out of fuel on the final circuit.

Just 10 laps into the race, Pilgrim went three-wide on Sofronas with a lapped car to the outside. Even though he failed to close the pass, Pilgrim served notice that he—and Team Cadillac—were in it to win it.

Pilgrim lost a position in traffic to Jason Daskalos and was thinking he’d be ninth at the finish, but managed to claw his way back to sixth when the caution came out. When Sofronas ran out of fuel, he got the top five he’d been seeking.

“It’s just frustrating a little bit, but hey, we’re top-five again, got some more points and we’ll move on. What can I say? It’s not too bad.”

With the top-five finishes in both races, O’Connell gained ground on Sofronas in the GT Series points. O’Connell is fifth with 537 points, just 89 markers behind. Pilgrim fared even better, sitting seventh with 445 points, 70 ahead of eighth place at the season’s halfway point.

In the manufacturer’s race, Porsche still leads, but Team Cadillac is closing the gap. Third-place Volvo did not score for the fourth straight race and trails Team Cadillac by 15 points.

O’Connell was pumped after three straight top-five finishes.

“That’s great,” he said. “We have so many bright guys. All the people that are working on these cars on the laptops are the guys who got 1600s on their SATs. The guys that didn’t do that are driving them. We’ve got ’s best and brightest trying to make this car better. They’ve shown their ability to do it in the past, and when you have such an amazing platform on a street car like the Cadillac CTS-V, it really does give us a lot to work with on the race car.”

Next action for Team Cadillac on the Pirelli World Challenge is Aug 5-7 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio.