NASCAR Pinty’s: Alex Guénette takes advantage of the chaos at the end of the race to win the GP3R
Alex Guenette took advantage of a collision between the three leaders to sneak into the lead on the 58th of 60 laps to win the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières. This is his first career win in the Nascar Pinty’s Series. DJ Kennington took second place and Marc-Antoine Camirand completed the podium.
Marc-Antoine Camirand collided with Jean-François Dumoulin who himself lost control before hitting his brother Louis-Philippe. The three drivers were able to continue, but Camirand fell to second place while the Dumoulin brothers found themselves sixth in the case of Louis-Philippe and 16th in the case of Jean-François. Camirand, who led the vast majority of the event, was overtaken a few laps before the incident after a restart.
GP3R: The amateurs were treated to quite a race
The event was suspended with a red flag after the collision between the three drivers. Guenette succeeded in his raise and he resisted an attack from Alex Tagliani to confirm his victory. Guénette then took advantage of the management of his car to claim victory.
» It’s incredible! All the race we tried to keep our brakes and our tires. In the past, we had good cars, but we always lacked brakes. I did my best to keep the brakes on and at the end I had a lot of speed. It’s been a few years since I rode a Pinty’s forward, so I had to refresh the memory of a few guys that I’m still here to finish up front, » Guénette said after the event. .
Kevin Lacroix started from the lead position, but he was robbed of the race command by Marc-Antoine Camirand at the second corner. Moments later, Lacroix hooked the safety switch in order to cut the engine, causing it to lose several positions. Lacroix finally retired on the 23rd lap of the race when his engine gave up the ghost.
Dominic St-Cyr was forced to retire on lap three after hitting the safety barrier when he appeared to have run out of brakes. After the neutralization due to this incident, Wallace Stacey and Glenn Styres collided on lap 10, knocking both drivers out of the event and resulting in a second consecutive neutralization.
A neutralization on lap 43 tightened the field as Camirand, Alex Guénette and Gary Klutt broke away in the lead. Three laps later, the event was suspended due to computer problems with timing. When the race restarted, Gary Klutt crashed into the rear of Andrew Ranger and both drivers ended up in the tire protection barrier.
Starting from 11th place, Jacques Villeneuve had mechanical problems even before taking the start. His car was escorted to the pits from the formation lap. The drivers returned to the pits with the track still wet which allowed the Villeneuve team to work on the car, but the former Formula 1 world champion was unable to start.
The event began nearly an hour and a half late due to thunderstorms that hit the Trois-Rivières region.
