Mississauga (Ontario) - The 2024 Nissan Sentra Cup season, with six events including one in the United States this summer, kicked off this weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, the famous motorsports complex located in Bowmanville, east of Toronto. Alexandre Fortin and Nicolas Barrette took advantage of the opportunity to get the first two victories of the season on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

Present on Canadian tracks thanks to Nissan Canada and JD Promotion since 2015, when the Nissan Micra Cup was created, the series was one of the stars of this 2024 edition of the Victoria Day SpeedFest. Series champion in 2023, St-Foy-Beauport Nissan driver Alexandre Fortin started this new campaign in the best way possible, taking pole position on Saturday, ahead of Éric Chaput, his father Daniel Fortin and Valérie Limoges, the 2022 champion.

It was a spectacular and uneventful start for the twenty or so Nissan Sentra's that started Race 1 on Saturday afternoon. Alexandre Fortin and Éric Chaput led the first turns side by side, to the delight of the spectators gathered along the Ontario circuit, before Fortin took the lead, ahead of Chaput and Valérie Limoges.

Throughout the forty minutes of the race, the gaps barely changed, the leading group remaining compact without Chaput being able to dislodge Alexandre Fortin from first place, despite a few very good attempts. In the second half of the event, it was Valérie Limoges who was the most incisive against Fortin, collecting the lap record in the process. This duel of champions turned to Fortin's advantage, by only 622 thousandths of a second. Chaput finished third ahead of Daniel Fortin, who was chased by Nicolas Barrette. Sylvain Ouellet, Nicolas Miron, Simon Vincent, Nicolas Lévesque, who was making his Sentra debut and gained three places, and Raphaël St-Pierre, also making his debut at the wheel of a Nissan Sentra racing car, completed the Top 10.

On Sunday, under the sun, the second race also began with a side-by-side duel between Alexandre Fortin and Éric Chaput, but the two drivers collided at the third turn. Fortin dropped 17 spots and Chaput withdrew. Daniel Fortin took over the reins, followed by Valérie Limoges and Nicolas Barrette.

For a few laps, Daniel Fortin distanced himself, while Limoges and Barrette swapped positions on almost every lap, to the delight of even more fans than the day before on the site. Further back in the field, the Nissan Sentra Cup drivers once again demonstrated all the capabilities and agility of the racing Sentras with spectacular battles for places 4 to 12, with the gaps never exceeding half a second between the fighting drivers.

With 15 minutes to go, the top twelve were riding closely together, with Nicolas Barrette now in the lead. But no one could predict who would win. This ultra-spectacular race finally saw Nicolas Barrette win his second Nissan Sentra Cup, the second in four races including the final event of the previous season. 

Daniel Fortin and Simon Vincent completed the podium, ahead of Mathieu Miron, Nicolas Miron, Nicolas Lévesque, Frédérick Chaput, Sylvain Ouellet, Jean-François Couture and Raphaël St-Pierre. Following contact with Daniel Fortin with ten minutes to go, Valérie Limoges dropped back to fourteenth position.

The next event will take place on July 7, at the ICAR Complex, as part of the second edition of the Nissan Grand Prix. This event will feature the Nissan Sentra Cup, in addition to a multitude of activities for motorsport and Nissan fans.

For more information on the Nissan Sentra Cup, visit the sentracup.comOpens in a new tab. website and the series' social media channels. To relive the 2023 season events in video, visit the Nissan Sentra Cup YoutubeOpens in a new tab. page.

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2024 CALENDAR – NISSAN SENTRA CUP

May 17, 18, 19                      Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, Bowmanville, Ontario
July 06 and 07                      Grand Prix Nissan, Complexe ICAR - Mirabel, Québec
July 19 and 20                      Lime Rock Park, Connecticut (États-Unis)
August 09, 10, 11                 Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières, Québec
Aug. 30, 31 & Sept. 1st        Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, Bowmanville, Ontario
September 27, 28, 29           Calabogie Motorsports Park, Ontario

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