[RUMORS] Garcia Gets Full Time Ride at Corvette Racing; Beretta Could Be Out

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[RUMORS] Garcia Gets Full Time Ride at Corvette Racing; Beretta Could Be Out

Over the last few days, we’ve been on the receiving end of some pretty interesting rumors regarding Corvette Racing. About this time every year, Fehan and the team review their driver lineups for the coming season and decisions are made on which drivers will be offered full time rides vs the part time endurance races. What we’ve been hearing so far is that Antonio Garcia will become a full-time driver for the Corvette Racing team. Multiple unconfirmed reports are listing Olivier Beretta as the driver that Garcia will be replacing.

Garcia’s rumored ascendency to a full time driver status was likely cemented in France during the 24 Hours of Le Mans. With Beretta sick from exhaust fumes, Garcia and Milner ran double and triple stints to put the #73 Corvette C6.R at the top of the GTE-Pro class.

Garcia joined the team as one of the two part-time endurance drivers with Corvette Racing in 2009. During his career which also saw him as a member of the arch rival Aston Martin DBR9 GT1 team, Garcia has three first place class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans including two with Corvette Racing.

Garcia’s full-time ride last year was with the GRAND-AM team Spirit of Daytona while driving the #90 DP. We last saw him in Daytona for the testing the new Corvette Daytona Prototype with Corvette Racing’s Oliver Gavin and Richard Westbrook.

ALMS prognosticator Murphy the Bear tweated earlier this week that Garcia would be racing full time for Corvette Racing next year and that the other Corvette Racing part-time endurance driver Richard Westbrook will replace Garcia on the Spirit of Daytona team. In another tweet this morning, the Bear claims that “Most likely – but not certain – regular ALMS driver displaced by Garcia is Olivier Beretta, according to other sources”.

Beretta has been a member of Corvette Racing since 2004. He has 4 class wins with the team at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and is the most successful driver in ALMS history with 41 career victories and 23 career poles through 2010.

Corvette Racing usually maintains radio silence during the off-season and especially in matters pertaining to driver changes, so we have yet to hear anything official at this point. But when it does come, we’ll bring to you immediately!



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