Ford scored its third consecutive IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory and fourth big international sportscar win in a row at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park today but they had to dig deep.

While the rapid Ford has been able to charge away on pure speed, today the Chip Ganassi Ford Racing Performance had to use strategy to get to the front with Richard Westbrook and Ryan Briscoe winning their third consecutive IMSA race..

“We pitted off-strategy with 1 hour and 20 minutes to go,” Briscoe said.

“We thought we’d go the whole way with the tires because we were out of the window with our fuel. We thought if we caught another yellow we could make it. We were in tire and fuel conservation mode as soon as we left the pits, but needed some help.

“When everyone else pitted we knew we had the opportunity to take a splash of fuel but not change tires. It was a brilliant call by the team. Tommy (Milner) was a bit quicker, but I was just trying to hang on and bring it home.

“By the end of the race, the car was hard in traffic. When the tires are worn all the way out, any debris or pickup is magnified. It was really hard getting through traffic, that’s where we gained the most time. We worked hard on the balance of the car this weekend. We made big improvements from Friday to today. We weren’t the quickest car, but we knew we could win it on strategy.”

The Ford led home the Corvette duo of Tommy Milner/Oliver Gavin with the second ‘Vette of Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen finishing third.

Both Corvette’s used the traditional two-stop strategy with the pole winning No.3 Corvette of Garcia and Magnussen holding the lead up until the second round of stops.

Garcia actually found himself back in fifth place and had to fight past the BMW of Dirk Werner and Porsche’s Fred Makowiecki en route to the podium.

In the GTD class BMW grabbed the victory for Turner Motorsport with Jens Klingmann and Bret Curtis ahead of the Audi of Robin Liddell and Andrew Davis.

#FordIMSA Checkers! Two in a row for #67FordGT & on @RWestbrook1 birthday. Brilliant strategy. #IMSA pic.twitter.com/hNQQLqYpYL

— Ford Performance (@FordPerformance) July 10, 2016

Congrats to @FordPerformance‘s @Ryan_Briscoe & birthday boy @RWestbrook1. 1hr20m on both sets of tires today. pic.twitter.com/XeB58wD9cc

— Michelin Alley (@MichelinAlley) July 10, 2016

Not the fastest car today in Mosport but great drivers and great team and great strategy brought the victory!

— Chip Ganassi (@GanassiChip) July 10, 2016

A hard fought 2nd place. Bummed to not get one better but good racing all around. Congrats… https://t.co/sO4R6lYcbk pic.twitter.com/ieVOOs9Gq2

— Tommy Milner (@TommyMilner) July 10, 2016

//results.imsa.com/Results/16_2016/11_Canadian%20Tire%20Motorsport%20Park/01_IMSA%20WeatherTech%20SportsCar%20Championship/201607101105_Race/03_Results.PDF