Corvette Racing at Laguna Seca: More on the ‘Pass Around’ Penalty

By
Keith Cornett
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Corvette Racing at Laguna Seca: More on the 'Pass Around' Penalty

Photo Credit: Richard Prince for Corvette Racing


What might have been a victory for the No. 3 Corvette C8.R turned to a fourth place finish in GTD-Pro at Sunday’s MOTUL Course de Monterey at Laguna Seca. With the field shaping up for a sprint to the finish, confusion during a yellow in the final hour led to Garcia inadvertently following the GTD-Pro leader in the No. 23 The Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 around the safety car which resulted in a late-race penalty that ended any chance for victory.

While the incident was discussed in the team’s after-action report, they have found the need to further address the penalty. Posted on Twitter, Corvette Racing issued the following statement:

Corvette Racing Fans!

We wanted to provide further clarification regarding the unfortunate penalty we received during the recent race at Laguna Seca.

During a full course caution, the pace car is deployed to pick up the overall race leader, often causing a separation between different classes. In this particular instance, the GTD class leader found themselves in front of the pace car while most of the GTD field remained behind it.

In such cases, the GTD leader must drive around the track until they reach the back of the pack and is positioned behind the pace car and overall leader, to get the rest of the same class cars in the correct running order the rest of the class cars behind the pass car need to also circle the track so they are position behind their respective class leaders. To accomplish this, a procedure called a “Pass Around” is implemented. Class cars behind the pace car become eligible for the Pass Around and are allowed to overtake the pace car, rejoining the field at the rear, behind the class leader.

During the race, a similar scenario occurred, but with a twist. The GTD AM leader was positioned in front of the pace car, whereas the GTD Pro leader was not. When the “Pass Around” was announced, all GTD cars, including the GTD Pro leader, moved to the right and began the pass around. However, the GTD Pro leader should have stayed in line, and we should not have followed him.

By the time we realized our mistake, it was too late, and we unfortunately received a penalty for an improper Pass Around. The penalty required us to make a stop and hold for a duration equal to two race laps, resulting in a hold time of 2 minutes and 50 seconds, ultimately putting us two laps down.


I bet Antonio is still not happy with what happened, and it’s just something that has to be chalked up to being an unfortunate racing incident that can happen to the best of racers. Following Sunday’s race, Antonio said:

“It’s a situation where when it’s green, you’re fighting all the GTDs. But when it comes to the safety car, we aren’t the same category. So we need to figure that out. The safety car split the GTD field. The GTD leader was the real GT leader, so that’s why everyone behind us moved to the right to get a pass-around, and the 23 moved to the right, as well. But because we were the GTD PRO leaders, we should have stayed where we were. But that’s the way the rules are. I just made a mistake and went to follow the 23 when they were wrong. I had a big queue of GTDs behind me, and all I could see behind me were GT cars moving to the right. So that’s what confused me. If I could have seen the Mercedes or Lexus GTD PRO cars behind me staying to the left, I would have figured it out. But there were a ton of cars between us. It’s a mistake that shouldn’t happen. On race pace, we had a car to win. We did everything right on strategy to be in the lead. As we showed at the end, I think we had a little more on tire degradation. We’ll review what happened, do a full analysis of the situation, and I know this won’t happen again.”

Corvette Racing at Laguna Seca: More on the 'Pass Around' Penalty


With only the WEC’s No. 33 Corvette C8.R racing at Le Mans, the No.3 Corvette C8.R in IMSA will not see action again until the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen on June 22-25th at Watkins Glen International.


Source:
Corvette Racing at Chevrolet and Corvette Racing / Twitter

Related:
Corvette Racing at Laguna Seca: What Might Have Been
Corvette Racing at Laguna Seca: Closer to the Front
Corvette Racing at Laguna Seca: 25 Years of Monterey Magic
Corvette Racing at Long Beach: Hard-Fought, Runner-Up Finish
Corvette Racing at Sebring: Fifth in Late-Race Carnage

 



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10 COMMENTS

  1. OK. Someone has to say it; might as well be me. The rules are crazy complicated and need to be changed. I do not have a suggestion, but I’m sure some really smart race fans do. It’s just nuts to the walls to lose a race for this. Not like racing is hard enough as it is…

  3. Yes, the #23 got the same penalty – they both came in and served it at the same time. The #23 was still in front after they both served the penalty, but Antonio must have passed the #23 in the final few laps. I didn’t see it as I pretty much stopped paying much attention after the penalty.

  4. A real shame to be penalized in such an innocent way, not realizing what was really going on until it was too late. Kind of similar to how Lewis Hamilton was screwed out of his 8th Championship in Brazil during the 2021 season.

  5. Antonio. No pasa nada. YOU are the class of the field and you are the reason I got my 2022 Corvette. The oficials have direct contact with each and every car and they should be able to tell each and everyon how to proceed. The oficials should have gotten a 2 laps around the track m jogging penalty !!!! Carlos Hermida (pichon de Gallego )

  6. Yeah, it’s too bad they weren’t told of the error and given the opportunity to drop back to the correct position before the caution period was over. I wonder what would have happened if all GTD Pro competitors had taken the wave by.

  7. It’s hard to tell the difference between pros and ams. Am cars should have a large red stripe so drivers and spotters and pick them out. Problem is the only difference in the two classes is just the drivers. Some Pro teams don’t do as well as Am teams. I say with all this BOP every one gets a trophy 🏆 crap, give the Pro cars 50 more horsepower.

  8. Shame, I don’t know why the BoP is even used, let them build the car to race spec and then race it. Everyone has the same rules, may the best car win!

  9. I’ve not been a fan of the GTD Pro and GTD cars being the exact same spec and the only difference being all-pro vs. pro-am driver lineups. When the pros are in the GTD cars, there is really no difference between the classes (and even some of the AM drivers are as good as the pros like Robbie Foley last year who is a pro driver this year).
    Clearly a lot of the GTD cars appear to seem to enjoy trying the beat the GTD Pro cars as much as the GTD cars in their own class. It makes harder for the GTD Pro cars to compete amongst themselves. I don’t know why they don’t give the Pro class a bit more HP or at least let them run their own tires rather than the spec tires like the GTLM class used to allow. Something to let them be a bit faster than the GTD so they can compete within class only. The 3 prototype classes have different performance specs, why not the GTD classes?

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