Garcia third in class, within a half-second of pole time ahead of 12 Hours
SEBRING, Fla. (March 18, 2022) – Corvette Racing’s Antonio Garcia qualified third in the GT Daytona (GTD) class Friday ahead of the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring as the program looks for its 12th victory in America’s oldest sports car race.
Garcia set a best lap of 1:59.927 (112.268 mph) in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R that he will share with Jordan Taylor and Nicky Catsburg. The Corvette was 0.513 seconds off the GTD PRO pole time of Daniel Serra and was eighth among the combined GTD category; there was only 0.164 seconds between Garcia and the fastest GTD class entry.
This is the first time a lone Corvette Racing entry will compete in the 12 Hours. It’s also the first time the program has entered a single car for an IMSA round since 2000 – the second year of the Corvette Racing program. The team is still running two Corvettes during 2022: one in IMSA and another in the GTE Pro category of the FIA World Endurance Championship, which also is racing at Sebring.
After struggling for pace in Thursday’s practice sessions, the No. 3 Corvette in GTD PRO received a power increase to bring it closer to the GTD field. The IMSA-spec Corvette has notable differences between the C8.R that ran in Friday’s WEC race and also was part of IMSA’s GT Le Mans category the last two seasons. The GTD PRO Corvette also will compete Saturday with an additional four liters of fuel compared to its original capacity Thursday.
The biggest area of learning for Corvette Racing continues to be the customer Michelin tires that are mandated across all GTD cars as compared to Michelins specifically developed for the C8.R in GTLM. Corvette Racing engineers dedicated significant time at the February test to gaining further understanding of the performance and degradation levels of the new Michelins.
The Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring is scheduled for 10:10 a.m. ET on Saturday, March 19. The race will air on USA Network from 3:30-10:30 p.m. ET with full streaming coverage on Peacock at 10 a.m. ET. IMSA Radio will air the race at IMSA.com along with Sirius 216, XM 207 and SiriusXM Online 992.
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – QUALIFIED THIRD IN GTD PRO:
“It was difficult to gauge. Not even the short practice before qualifying was nice because we didn’t have really any laps where I had one lap plus the in-lap to see how the car would behave. It’s not ideal but it’s the same for everybody. It would have been nice and less of a question mark to have had a normal session so we could know what our real pace will be instead of having to nail the only lap available. That would clear up some stuff on some setup work we’re trying. I think we have a decent car. It’s still our first race at Sebring on these tires and in this spec. We should be decent. We’re not that far back now. Let’s see where we end up.”
Source:
CorvetteRacing.com
Related:
Corvette Racing at Sebring: Finding a Footing
IMSA Sets BoP for Sebring and Of Course More Weight Was Added to the Corvette C8.R
Corvette Racing at Daytona: Tough Debut in GTD PRO
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Go Chevrolet Corvette Racing! Best of luck #3 C8.R, Antonio, Jordan & Nicky.
It is good to see some common sense come into play and adjust the cars. It is still unfortunate that Chevy split down the team between 2 programs, but in any case, the GTE side did well yesterday and here is to good running today!!!
I have read what the C8.Rs and the Cadillac DPi.VR’s have in their inductions- some thing called sonic restrictors. Can anybody provide a web link describing these things better? I assume it is a fancy word for intake geometry, but looking for a friend here…
Perfect weather today, we running well!!!???
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