Johnny O'Connell became Sebring's winningest driver with his seventh class victory in Saturday's 12-hour race. O'Connell, with teammates Jan Magnussen and Ron Fellows ran a flawless race in the #3 Corvette, finishing 8 laps ahead of the #4 C6.R Corvette team and 29 laps ahead of the #008 Bell Motorsports Aston Martin DBR9. The #3 Corvette C6.R completed 328 laps of the 3.7-mile historic road course to finish first in the GT1 class and 9th overall.
O'Connell's seventh victory broke a longstanding tie with motorsports legend Phil Hill, who had six victories at Sebring:
"It's huge to break Phil Hill's record," said O'Connell. "Phil is the embodiment of everything that was wonderful about that era of sports car racing. When you meet some of your childhood heroes, they're a disappointment, but when I met Phil, he was the coolest cat in the world. He talked about the beauty of the cars he competed in and the spectacle of this race. When you spend time with someone who is that deep and insightful, you come away with a much better understanding of how special this race is.
"When you win Sebring, you share it," O'Connell noted. "It's not about one guy. I got my first ALMS win with Jan in 1999, and I've won some 25 races with Ron. I can't think of two finer gentlemen and race car drivers I'd rather share this win with."
The fortunes for the #4 C6.R Corvette took a turn for the worse at just under the two hour mark of the race. The Corvette suffered a rear axle problem and needed to make a trip to the transporter where the crew replaced the right half shaft. The repair took just nine minutes but by the time the #4 Corvette made it back out to the track the #3 Corvette had a nine lap advantage.
Next up for Corvette Racing is the Acura Sports Car Challenge of St. Petersburg on April 5th. ABC will televise the one-hour, 55-minute event live starting at 1:30 p.m. ET.
Sources:
CorvetteRacing.com
American LeMans
Related:
Sebring 2008: Corvette Racing News Roundup
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Corvette | Vette | Sebring | ALMS | GT1 | Race
Posted At : 12:34 PM. | Posted By : keith | Corvette Racing | Comments (0)
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