TORONTO, Ontario — Despite picking up on an engine issue in the early stages of the Pinty’s Grand Prix, L.P. Dumoulin was still able to leave Exhibition Place with a podium finish.

“Super happy with my WeatherTech and Bellemare team,” he told POPULAR SPEED. “I think we had a tough race. We had engine problems at the beginning of the race. The team didn’t have any control on it, but they diagnosed it pretty quick and they told me it wouldn’t get better or worse, but we’d have to deal with it.

“We fought with it the whole race, but the car was so fast in the technical parts, which was awesome for us. A third for us is like a win this weekend. It’s really positive for the future, because we know we improved a lot, and that means the rest of this season will be more interesting.”

Although the third-place finish was nice for Dumoulin, he feels if they hadn’t ran into the mechanical issues, they had a good enough car to beat Alex Tagliani for the win.

“It’s happened a couple times since the beginning of the season,” he added. “But again, I’m really feeling positive about the rest of the season.”

The third-place finish allows Dumoulin to rank fourth in the standings, 22 points behind Andrew Ranger for the top spot as the series heads west to Wyant Group Raceway and Edmonton International Raceway.

The next stretch has Dumoulin excited, as he loves both of the short tracks out there, including a win in Edmonton last season. Then to follow it up with his home town event with the Three Rivers, Quebec road course, and you could have the perfect storm brewing.

EMAIL ASHLEY AT ashley.mccubbin@popularspeed.com

FOLLOW ON TWITTER:@ladybug388

The thoughts and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of PopularSpeed.com, its owners, management or other contributors. Any links contained in this article should not be considered an endorsement.