Sabré Cook achieved her third top ten finish of the season in the Porsche Carrera Cup North America at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, overcoming challenging wet conditions and securing her best qualifying performance to date.
Sabré Cook claimed her third top ten finish of the season in Porsche Carrera Cup North America at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal, as the series supported F1 for the second weekend in a row.
Cook, a Shift Up Now athlete, had finished within the top-15 at every previous race of the season, with an eighth place as her personal best at the second race meeting at Miami Autodrome, which had been the venue of her strongest result of the season also in her rookie campaign in 2023.
At the home of the Canadian Grand Prix, Cook had to face the challenge of heavy rain throughout both contests, but despite a tricky race 1 on Saturday, she made her way up the order and brought home another remarkable result in race 2, matching her best finish of the season.
At the wheel of the #37 PenFed Credit Union Porsche 992 Cup machine operated by MDK Motorsports, Cook focused on learning the track and fine tuning her car in the two practice sessions on Friday - the first being ran in dry conditions, while rain impacted the second practice, which made set up work more challenging amidst changeable weather.
However, that wet-weather experience proved to be useful later on in the weekend.
Rain was expected on Saturday as well, but the track stayed dry for qualifying in the morning. The session, though, was soon halted with a red flag and only resumed for the final 14 minutes, with the whole 35-car field wrestling for track position.
Cook navigated the traffic expertly and set a competitive lap which was enough to place her eleventh on the grid of race 1 - with her second best lap also resulting in a start from P11 in race 2. This marked Cook’s best qualifying performance in the Porsche Carrera Cup North America to date.
With rain looming on Saturday afternoon, all teams chose to start the race on dry tyres. However, just two laps into the 40-minute race, the anticipated rain arrived, leading to chaos on track. Baltas took the lead into turn 1 ahead of Cooper, Hartog and Sedgwick just before light rain showed up on the second lap.
Cook had lost a couple of positions on the opening lap, but was starting to put pressure on Kaminsky, just six tenths ahead, when the rain shower intensified and she was caught out by a spin at the hairpin on lap 3.
Amidst several mistakes by the whole field in the deteriorating conditions, the safety car was deployed soon after - and eventually the red flag halted the action one lap later, in now undrivable conditions. Cook had managed to rejoin, albeit in 25th position overall, and 15th among the PRO class entries.
The rain continued and, while the cars were sent out again behind the safety car with 6 minutes to go, the race couldn't eventually resume and the result was called. The unlucky timing of the spin meant that Sabré Cook completed her first race of the season outside of the point-scoring positions - but Sunday's second race presented another opportunity to showcase her racecraft.
The rain continued into Sunday morning at Montreal: with conditions widely similar to the previous day, the race got underway behind the safety car and once the green flag fell, everyone made it through the first corner, with Loek Hartog holding on to the lead from Saturday's winner Yves Baltas and Alex Sedgwick.
Sabré Cook had a very smart start and was up to ninth place after the first lap, with superb driving in extreme conditions. Amidst cars going off all across the field, Sabré Cook was hit by Elias De La Torre on lap 2 and unfortunately dropped to 14th - however she could continue with no damages.
After a caution, the race was back underway with 24 minutes left on the clock: Cook immediately cleared Stewart and, with a spectacular lap, she passed Uretsky, Pedersen, De La Torre and Llibre, claiming back her ninth place before the contact on the second lap.
The Shift Up Now athlete was on a mission and, almost a second faster than the car ahead, she gained the position just before the deployment of the safety car for the big accident of Kaminsky at the final chicane.
Due to extensive barrier damage the race ended behind the Safety Car and Sabré Cook brought home a superb eighth place finish, having recovered from 14th at the start of the race.
“What a mix of a weekend,” Sabré commented. “I’m pleased with my best qualifying to date in Porsche Carrera Cup North America, and feeling strong about our recovery to P8 in race two. The MDK Team and I are working well together, and I’m excited to continue our progress at Watkins Glen next week!”
The Porsche Carrera Cup North American championship will in fact head to the iconic Watkins Glen racetrack for the fourth round of the season, in support of the IMSA 6 Hours of the Glen, on June 20-22.
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