The inaugural season of Sports Car Championship Canada has its first Champion and it is Multimatic Motorsports’ Marco Signoretti. Marco takes the title after sweeping the series, winning all 12 races in the six event, double header championship.
Sports Car Championship Canada was created by FEL Motorsports for 2021 in response to the pandemic making North American racing tough for Canadian teams having to continually cross the border, as only the US rounds have survived. Multimatic, as one of Canada’s preeminent motorsports organisations backed the new series straight away, signing up to run a Ford Mustang GT4 for Signoretti.
The final two races of the season took place at the legendary Canadian Tire Motorsport Park on 2-3 October and when Marco set a time even faster than his own lap record during Qualifying, the team knew the Mustang was looking good for the weekend.
Marco got the chance to develop his tyre management skills in Race 1 as it was riddled with cautions and safety cars. So much so that of the 40-minute race, only 10 laps were green flag running. The cautions gave Marco the opportunity to apply a key lesson he had learnt during the season; to clean up and heat the tyres prior to going back to green. The final restart took place with just three minutes remaining in the race. Marco was ready and didn’t look back on his way to the chequered flag.
When the team arrived at the track for Sunday’s race they found the circuit cloaked by rain and fog, reminiscent of so many of the Canadian Grands Prix held at the same time of the year back in the ‘70’s. Fortunately the conditions improved sufficiently for the start of the final race of the season. Despite the light drizzle a dry line started to appear and so the #22 Mustang was fitted with slick tyres for the start. At the green, Marco took an early lead despite being pressured from behind by the front wheel drive cars, and as the conditions changed throughout the race he continually adapted and held on for his 12th win of the season!
“I have learned so much this year,” said Signoretti. “My confidence and understanding of the car and this type of racing is far higher than it was at the start of the season. I built some great relationships with the whole Multimatic Motorsports team and I cannot thank everyone enough for the value this season has brought me. I am looking forward to the next challenge… whatever that may be!”
Multimatic Motorsports boss, Larry Holt, said: “That was an outstanding season of racing for Marco. He has now contested two national road car championships and won them both, a pretty amazing record so far. I think that it was important for Multimatic Motorsports to support FEL in the inaugural season of the SCCC because we came from competing in Canadian championships and I wanted to help make sure that there was still a place to race up here, especially during the pandemic. It has become increasingly difficult for Canadian based teams to cross the border and the North American series have cancelled their Canadian rounds, so hats off to Chris Bye for coming-up with a solution. We have used this year as an education for Marco, and the weather, tracks and racing have fully cooperated by throwing every possible scenario at him, and he fully rose to those challenges. I predict that he will enjoy a strong future in cars after an impressive career in Go-Karts.”
