Yahoo Autos Jones stretches VP Challenge win streak to five at CTMP
If nothing else, Jagger Jones is keeping the pressure on in the IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge. The 21-year-old soared to his fifth straight win of 2024 on Saturday, in the first of two weekend races at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
Jones, driving the No. 87 FastMD Racing with Remstar Duqueine D08, started outside of polesitter and Le Mans Prototype 3 (P3) championship points leader Steven Aghakhani (No. 6 MLT Motorsports Ligier JS P320) in the 45-minute sprint race, but darted to the lead in Turn 1 on the opening lap and never looked back. Jones built a lead of more than 15 seconds before a late full-course caution ended the race with the yellow and checkered flags flying simultaneously.
Because he missed the opening doubleheader round at Daytona International Speedway, Jones sits third in the P3 standings, unofficially 480 points behind leader Aghakhani. But the son of former IMSA driver PJ Jones and grandson of the late racing legend Parnelli Jones continues fighting for every win he can to narrow the gap.
“I had to work for it a bit more starting second,” Jones said in victory lane. “I had a really good jump at the start, was able to go around the outside in Turn 1, which is always awesome. Then I just picked pretty smart moves through traffic.
“The goal is two wins every weekend and we just did one, so one more tomorrow.”
That’s not to say Saturday’s winning drive was uneventful. Already holding a comfortable lead 18 minutes into the race, Jones lost control of the No. 87 Duqueine in Turn 5, spun but somehow recovered.
“I thought I was crashed,” he admitted. “I was like, ‘That’s it,’ and then all of a sudden, I was going straight again. I don’t know what I did there.”
Jonathan Woolridge, who won in his CTMP debut last year, finished third Saturday in the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports Ligier.
Canadian Polito wins on home turf in GSX debut
Jack Polito turned his VP Racing Challenge debut into an even more memorable day at his home track. The Lindsay, Ontario, resident drove the No. 98 Polito Racing Ford Mustang GT4 to the Grand Sport X (GSX) class victory by holding off GSX points leader Luca Mars.
Polito started second in class and was still running there when GSX polesitter Jesse Lazare (No. 21 Motorsports In Action McLaren Artura GT4) stopped on track with 20 minutes left in the 45-minute sprint. With Mars (No. 59 KohR Motorsports Ford) breathing down his neck on the ensuing restart, Polito held firm and was still in first place when the second caution flag waved for a single-car crash involving Eddie Killeen (No. 37 Thaze Competition Mercedes-AMG GT GT4). Polito and Mars gave Ford a 1-2 finish under yellow.
“It feels pretty good, pretty fantastic!” Polito said. “I’ve been pounding laps here since I was 15 years old and I’ve just been grinding, working out, training for this. I’ve just been envisioning it, manifesting it, and it came true. I’m pretty happy.”
Polito captured the 2023 FEL Motorsports Sports Car Championship Canada GT4 class title in a Mustang, winning nine of 12 races. He used that experience to springboard his VP Racing Challenge coming-out party this weekend.
“Last year I got to compete in the FEL series and we ended up taking the championship,” Polito said. “Then we decided to do an IMSA race this year and it went so far awesome. It feels pretty good to represent Ford, couldn’t be happier. Wouldn’t want to choose any other brand, that’s for sure.”
The second VP Racing Challenge race at CTMP streams live on Peacock and IMSA.tv at 3:30 p.m. ET Sunday.
