Third-place in class for Garcia, Taylor, No. 3 C8.R
ELKHART LAKE, Wis. (Aug. 6, 2023) – Corvette Racing finished third Sunday in the GTD PRO class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s feature event at Road America.
The No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R of Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor led multiple times in the two-hour, 40-minute race with strong pace and engineering strategy that elevated the team from its third-place starting spot.
Taylor got things started early by getting the jump at the drop of the green flag with a run from third to second place by the first corner. He moved into the class lead just shy of 40 minutes running when the class-leading and race-winning Aston Martin made its first stop as differing fuel strategies emerged in the first stint.
Taylor set his best lap of the race a lap later before handing off to Garcia at the 51-minute mark. Having been the last of the top three cars to pit, Garcia and the No. 3 Corvette carried a fuel advantage for the race’s second and final scheduled pit stop.
That happened with Garcia leading and taking on fuel and four tires with 52 minutes left. He emerged directly ahead of the Aston Martin and barely in the lead. The two cars raced nose-to-tail and side-by-side for a half-lap before Garcia took charge.
Things changed, however, as the No. 3 team was forced to serve a penalty for not meeting the minimum refueling time required by sanctioning body IMSA on the final stop. Team and series officials discussed the matter, but the call stood and Garcia had to give up the lead with 24 minutes left in order to drive through the pitlane.
The Corvette Racing team will continue to work with IMSA to understand its process of determining refueling penalties.
Corvette Racing’s next event is the Michelin GT Challenge at VIR on August 25-27 from Virginia International Raceway.
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – FINISHED THIRD IN GTD PRO:
“A very disappointing result and a shame about the penalty. We had strong pace and good strategy calls that put us in the lead late. It was a hard but fair fight with the Aston late. Instead of gaining points in the championship, now we have lost more. Winning races is our only goal from now on.”
JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R:
“I was happy with my stint. The Corvette Racing guys did a great job giving us a good setup to move forward and eventually take the lead a couple of times. Things were looking great until the penalty on the last stop. Now we have to focus on getting maximum points in every race from here on.”
Source:
Corvette Racing at Chevrolet
Related:
Corvette Racing at Road America: Taylor Third in Qualifying
Corvette Racing at Road America: Going for Race Wins
Jordan Taylor is the Hero We All Need
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What a bunch of BS. This is why racing in these fake and made-up leagues is so frustrating. Penalties, arcane rules, horsepower constraints and other teams that bump and cut you off and get away with it. Hard to really get interested in this stuff.
The Corvette team takes the award for the most bad luck; they either smoke everybody…or get smoked…..hard. That’s what happens when you only run a single car against everybody other OEM who has plenty of cars out there.
Good news that they named the only customer team, but in the wake of that, Ford debuts their GT3, then debuts the GT4…complete with its own IMSA-sanctioned single make championship. Opportunity lost for GM.
America’s Sports Car deserves better than this.
Do better, Laura.
This is BS, the Chevy Corvette Racing pit crew does not make mistakes. If any body made a mistake, it was lMSA, their timing system was wrong. I’m beginning to think IMSA has it in for Chevy Corvette Racing, they are always penalizing them, putting BoP on them. It stinks. Just leave them alone & they will win. They were dominating the race until the stupid penalty took them from 1st to 3rd. BS!
Of course, IMSA is owned by NASCAR. What do you expect for rules by a woke organization. Looks like it’s Lexus turn to win the trophy this year. Too bad for Corvette Racing’s final season. Maybe GM can start putting together a program for pink rainbow EVs for a future woke class.
I guess I’m at a loss for understanding this penalty. If you’ve used a solid fuel saving strategy and you come in for tires and fuel, it’s not going to take as long to refuel the car?
So what detail do we know about this penalty? It was suggested during the broadcast that perhaps there was a sensor issue?? What is the minimum requirement for fueling that was not satisfied? Not only is a rule on minimum fuel time simply excessive, it defeats fuel strategy. Splash and dash according to the race engineers’ calculations to cross the finish line!
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