Philip Ellis led 65 of the race’s laps, including the final 50, and crossed the finish line with a 1.886-second margin of victory Sunday at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. It was the kind of dominant performance Winward Racing needed after months of watching a championship defense slip sideways.
The No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, co-driven by Russell Ward and Ellis, won the two-hour and 40-minute GTD class race to become the first team and manufacturer to notch a repeat victory in the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season. That stat alone tells you how tight this GTD field has been all year.
Ward handled the opening stint, running nose-to-tail with the GTD leaders before a well-timed full-course caution around the 45-minute mark gave the team a clean pit window. Ellis climbed in and the Winward crew delivered the kind of pit stop that wins races, sending the No. 57 back out in the top four.
On the ensuing restart, Ellis needed just a handful of laps to climb to second. He stalked the leader for 25 minutes before making his move on lap 51, then immediately stretched the gap to over three seconds. A final pit stop with just over an hour remaining went off without a hitch, and Ellis cycled back into the lead as the rest of the GTD contenders made their own stops. From there, he managed a steady one-to-two-second cushion all the way home.
It was Winward’s first win since the Rolex 24 at Daytona back in January, and their first GTD victory outside the United States. The gap between Daytona glory and this Canadian breakthrough was filled with what Ward diplomatically called “pretty poor luck.” The win vaulted the No. 57 to fourth in both the GTD team and driver championship standings with 1,618 points, still 207 behind the class leaders with four races remaining.
That’s a deficit, but not an insurmountable one for a team chasing its third consecutive GTD title. “We need a little bit of this luck to continue through the rest of the year, and I think we can claw back some of that points lead,” Ward said.
The weekend wasn’t as kind to Mercedes-AMG’s other IMSA efforts. Saturday’s Michelin Pilot Challenge Grand Sport race turned into a demolition derby for both the sister No. 57 Winward Mercedes-AMG GT4 and the No. 24 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4. Bryce Ward got sideswiped in qualifying, forcing a back-of-the-pack start.
Co-driver Daan Arrow then took front-end damage while fighting through traffic. They still scraped together enough points to keep Ward in the GS top five, 50 points off fourth place.
Murillo Racing fared no better. Aurora Straus drove a strong opening stint, gaining six positions before handing off to Kenny Murillo. He was running within striking distance of the top ten when an overly aggressive competitor spun him out in the closing minutes.
The offender was penalized, but the damage was done. Murillo parked the car a few laps from the finish rather than risk further harm.
Straus didn’t sugarcoat it. “Unfortunately, the results don’t reflect the pace we had,” she said. Murillo pointed to the team’s upcoming P1 Motor Club facility as a potential turning point, giving them a dedicated venue for testing and development.
The GTD win is the story that matters for Winward and Mercedes-AMG, though. Two-time champions don’t stay down quietly, and 207 points across four races is the kind of gap that shrinks fast when pit stops are clean and restarts are aggressive. Road America is next, July 30 through August 2. The defending champions finally have momentum again, but whether they have enough races left is the harder question.
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