Corvette Racing at Long Beach: Time to Make Some Magic

Garcia, Taylor aim to charge forward in street fight with No. 3 C8.R

LONG BEACH, Calif. (April 14, 2023) – Corvette Racing will start fourth in class and fifth among all production-based GT cars Saturday for the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach following Friday’s qualifying session for the Acura Grand Prix.

Antonio Garcia set a best lap of 1:18.329 (90.449 mph) in a tough-luck, 15-minute qualifying for GT Daytona (GTD) PRO cars in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Driving the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R with teammate Jordan Taylor, Garcia finished the session a half-second off the GTD PRO pole time.

He lost two of his best laps in the qualifying due to cars spinning ahead of him, which meant the Corvette had to bail out on those flying laps. Still, Garcia will look to make up spots early and often at the tight and twisty 1.968-mile, 11-turn circuit. The race likely will feature one planned pit stop, so the potential is there for the stellar Corvette Racing crew to gain spots in the pitlane.

Long Beach is an intense 100-minute dash for the Corvette program and the rest of the WeatherTech Championship teams. It’s an event that Corvette Racing has won more than another team in series history – four times since 2014 – to go along with four more victories in the American Le Mans Series era from 2007-2013.

The event is, of course, miles different than the team’s first two races of the season – the Rolex 24 and Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. Due to the 100-minute race time and no margin for error with concrete walls lining the circuit, qualifying and track position are everything.

That meant a dual-focused approach in Friday’s two practice sessions for establish the best qualifying and race setups in order to not just earn track position in Friday’s time trials but to also keep and improve it Saturday in the race.

The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is scheduled for 5:05 p.m. ET / 2:05 p.m. PT on Saturday. The race will air live on USA Network from 5-7 p.m. ET with full streaming coverage on Peacock. IMSA Radio will carry the race at IMSA.com along with Sirius 217, XM 207 and SiriusXM Online 992.

ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – QUALIFIED FOURTH IN GTD PRO:

“It was a difficult session in a way. It was difficult to gauge the traffic and when people were going to spin. So far we have been struggling to put temperature in the tires. We definitely needed more laps. It’s a shame I only got one good-ish lap. Maybe it should have been better than that but it’s a shame that a 15-minute qualifying went down to five or six laps total around here.

“The McLaren spun in front of me in Turn Five, and I had to bail on that lap. Then we there was another crash at Turn Eight. Those may have been good laps there. I’m not sure they would have been good for pole, but the car and the rhythm were still coming in. But that’s Long Beach.”

2023 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship – GTD PRO
(After two of 11 events)

Driver Standings
1. Daniel Juncadella/Jules Gounon/Maro Engel – 708
2. Ben Barnicoat/Jack Hawksworth – 682
3. Klaus Bachler/Laurens Vanthoor/Patrick Pilet – 659
4. Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor/Tommy Milner – 643
5. Jordan Pepper/Romain Grosjean – 612

Team Standings
1. No. 79 WeatherTech Racing – 708
2. No. 14 Vasser Sullivan – 682
3. No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports – 659
4. No. 3 Corvette Racing – 643
5. No. 63 Iron Lynx – 612

Manufacturer Standings
1. Mercedes-AMG – 708
2. Lexus – 682
3. Porsche – 659
4. Chevrolet – 643
5. Lamborghini – 612

CORVETTE RACING AT LONG BEACH: By the Numbers

• 1: As in one team, one manufacturer and one model of car for 16 years at Long Beach: Corvette Racing, Chevrolet and the Chevrolet Corvette.
  
• 3: Generations of Corvette Racing entries at Long Beach since 2007 – Corvette C6.R (2007-13) and Corvette C7.R (2014-2019) and Corvette C8.R (2021-current). All three generations have won at least once at Long Beach.
  
• 4: Number of Long Beach race victories for Corvette Racing’s duo of Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor.
• 8: Number of drivers who have competed at Long Beach for Corvette Racing – Olivier Beretta, Antonio Garcia, Oliver Gavin, Jan Magnussen, Tommy Milner, Johnny O’Connell, Nick Tandy and Jordan Taylor. Each driver won at least once at Long Beach.
• 8: Number of Long Beach victories in 15 appearances for Corvette Racing – more than any other IMSA entrant at the circuit.
• 10: Number of Long Beach sports car victories for Chevrolet. Throw in 12 IndyCar wins, and Chevrolet has claimed 22 victories in the event’s two premier races.
• 14: Manufacturer Championships for Chevrolet and Corvette Racing since 2001.
• 19: Number of street circuit victories for Corvette Racing – more than any other IMSA entrant at the circuit.
• 26: Tracks at which Corvette Racing has won races – Baltimore, Charlotte Motor Speedway, COTA, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park/Mosport, Daytona, Detroit, Houston, Laguna Seca, Le Mans, Lime Rock, Long Beach, Miami, Mid-Ohio, Monza, Portland, Road America, Road Atlanta, Sebring, Sonoma, St. Petersburg, Texas, Trois Rivieres, Utah, VIR, Washington DC and Watkins Glen
• 30: Number of wins in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for Corvette Racing since the start of 2014.
• 34: Number of drivers for Corvette Racing since 1999. Ben Keating and Nico Varrone joined that list with their participation – and victory – in the 1,000 Miles of Sebring for the World Endurance Championship.
• 123: Victories worldwide for Corvette Racing – 113 in North America and eight at Le Mans.
• 269: Event starts by Corvette Racing since 1999.
• 4,081.61: Number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing in its 15 previous trips to Long Beach. That represents 2,074 laps around the 1.968-mile street circuit.
• 353,311.01: Total number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing since its inception. To put that in perspective, Corvette Racing is more than halfway to the distance traveled by Apollo 13 – the longest manned spaceflight in history: 622,268 miles. That means Corvette Racing has raced to the moon… and then some!

Corvette Racing at Long Beach

2007
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Johnny O’Connell – 2nd in GT1 (Magnussen fastest race lap)
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 1st in GT1 (Gavin pole)

2008
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Johnny O’Connell/Jan Magnussen – 1st in GT1 (Magnussen pole)
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 1st in GT1 (Gavin fastest race lap)

2009
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Johnny O’Connell – 2nd in GT1
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 1st in GT1 (Beretta pole, fastest race lap)

2010
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Johnny O’Connell – 2nd in GT2
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Jan Magnussen – 9th in GT2 (Gavin fastest race lap)

2011
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Tommy Milner – 5th in GT
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Jan Magnussen – 2nd in GT (Magnussen fastest race lap)

2012
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 4th in GT
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 1st in GT (Gavin fastest race lap)

2013
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 5th in GT
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 4th in GT (Gavin fastest race lap)

2014
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 1st in GTLM (Magnussen pole)
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 3rd in GTLM (Milner fastest race lap)

2015
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 3rd in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 7th in GTLM

2016
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 9th in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 2nd in GTLM

2017
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 5th in GTLM (Magnussen pole)
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 1st in GTLM

2018
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 4th in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 1st in GTLM

2019
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 2nd in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 3rd in GTLM

2021
No. 3 Corvette C8.R: Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 2nd in GTLM (Taylor pole)
No. 4 Corvette C8.R: Tommy Milner/Nick Tandy – 1st in GTLM (Tandy fastest race lap)

2022
No. 3 Corvette C8.R: Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 3rd in GTD PRO (Taylor pole)

Source:
Corvette Racing at Chevrolet

Related:
Corvette Racing at Long Beach: Expect the Unexpected
Corvette Racing at Sebring: Fifth in Late-Race Carnage
Corvette Racing at Sebring: Garcia Takes GTD PRO Pole