A Lap of Mosport with Lucas Luhr

The American Le Mans Series will compete in the Grand Prix of Mosport at Mosport International Raceway near Toronto Aug. 15-17. In this first-person narrative, Alex Job Racing Porsche driver Lucas Luhr describes how he drives a lap of the 2.459-mile circuit.

Lucas Luhr.

Photo by Richard Sloop.

"I didn't have much luck at Mosport last year, my teammate Sascha (Maassen) and I had some difficulties and we had to finish the race without a door on our Porsche! That was an experience and it really was okay because the air was able to flow into the car which felt good on the hot race day. We managed to finish third which was good considering the troubles we had.

The circuit has long corners and a lot of hills. I find myself in a rhythm when I drive at Mosport. I like driving the circuit because I can keep my speed up in the turns and especially along the Andretti straightaway.

The Canadian fans at Mosport are always really enthusiastic which makes the race fun.

Turn one is a downhill, right hand corner. Going into turn two is very fast, I am in fourth gear here and once again going downhill. Here I have to be precise because the apex is blind.

For the right hand third corner, I have to brake and get into third gear for another blind apex.

The infamous turn five.

Photo by Ange Lisuzzo.

The next right hand turn 5b is the slowest corner of the track and I am in first gear at this point. There is not a lot of grip.

The Andretti straight is a good place for me to overtake my GT opponents and be overtaken by the quicker prototypes. Here I stay on the right and the prototypes stay on the left. This is where I like it because I can drive flat out and fast.

Turn eight is another corner; when I brake, I shift down and reach the apex.

I shift to third for turn the left hand corner of turn nine. Here I must be on the left side of the track for the final turn.

Turn 10 is a right hand corner and when I enter this turn, I know I have to do it all over again."

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