After Corvettes have won the last five of the world’s top endurance races, Corvette Racing Program Manager Doug Fehan has seen enough.
With the team’s latest performance, last Saturday’s Sebring 12 Hour win, Fehan declared that Corvette Racing is the best in its class.
It’s hard to argue.
Corvette Racing has now won Daytona and Sebring in 20015 and 2016, along with the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2015.
The win at Sebring last week was particularly sweet because the #3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen, Antonio Garcia, and Mike Rockenfeller was knocked out after a scuffle with the #911 Porsche. That left it up to the #4 car of Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner, and Marcel Fassler to pick up the torch and run with it.
And run they did.
Despite being two laps down with six hours to go, the #4 Corvette roared back with Milner behind the wheel at the end to win by 2.882 seconds.
“It takes an effort like this to win in this race and in this series,” Fehan said. “We’re racing against the world’s best. And today we demonstrated why Corvette Racing is the world’s best GT racing team.”
Fehan thought he had seen it all with the big wins at Le Mans and Daytona, but then “Corvette Racing comes back from one of our cars being taken out and the other going two laps down with six hours to go, and standing here in Victory Lane…”
The superlatives poured out of Fehan, who added: “It’s a great team, great drivers, tremendous strategy and engineering, flawless execution on pit stops.”
Likewise, Chevrolet U.S. Vice President Jim Campbell was impressed.
“Great driving, teamwork and execution in the pits were keys to the GTLM class victory,” he said. “To come from two laps down and win in a field as competitive as the IMSA GTLM class is a true reflection of the never-give-up attitude of the Corvette Racing team.”
Milner sensed a win when he climbed in for the final laps. “…when I got in at the end, I’ve never had a race car that good,” he said. “That Corvette was absolutely on rails and I could tell as soon as I left pit lane… I immediately knew we had a fast racecar.”
Gavin summed up the past year with these comments: “This is 60 hours of racing that we’ve won in the last 12 months with the No. 4 – Le Mans, Daytona and now Sebring. That is just amazing.”
Source:
Motorsport.com
Related:
Five Crazy Moments for Corvette Racing at the Twelve Hours of Sebring
Corvette Racing at Sebring: Second Straight Win for Corvette C7.R to Start 2016
Corvette Racing at Sebring: Corvette C7.Rs in the Thick of GTLM Fight
-
Last year at LeMans is the luckiest win by any car I’ve seen in 25 years of watching and going to LeMans. Toni Vilander ran down and passed the Vette in the #51 Ferrari with 55 minutes remaining. Vilander was pulling away from the Vette when some debris on the track got jammed up in the Ferrari gearbox, allowing the Vette for its luckiest win ever. The Vette wins at Daytona and Sebring are hollow wins when the IMSA BoP is clearly an advantage for the Vette. The Vette gets 92 liters of fuel and the Ferrari gets a paltry 79 and is made to run the smallest intake restrictor of ALL other of the GTLM cars, not to mention has to use the smallest refueling nozzle which slows refueling during pit stops. Just wait until this June at LeMans when the WEC BoP is equal…we’ll just see how your Vette does against the Ferrari 488 this year….remember, the Vette was nowhere to be seen in 2012 and 2014 at LeMans when the AF CORSE #51 Ferrari 458 won by 16 laps in 2012 and 4 laps in 2014….can’t wait to see Ferrari take down this unfounded arrogance of you calling the Vette the best GT car ever when it’s the MC-12 that was the best ever….
Well?….why doesn’t my comment show here?…what’s up…
I guess my comment prior to LeMans was dead on, the IMSA based Risi Competizione Ferrari destroyed these vaunted Vettes, weren’t even a factor whatsoever at last June’s LeMans. Pretty sad that a small private one car team can completely dominate a two car massive factory effort of both Ford and Chevy……yea right Chevy, maybe next year….and another thing, that heavy front engined Vette is quickly becoming obsolete. Better get that mid-engined Ferrari copy Vette on track soon or Chevy will be left even farther behind…
Comments are closed.