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Corvette Racing Finishes Fourth, Seventh In GTE Pro Class After 2013 24 Hours Of Le Mans

After 24 hours of a record amount of caution flags, bi-polar weather, and a fiercely competitive grid, Corvette Racing just missed the podium — letting slip their 8th GTE-class win in 13 years. 22-year-old Jordan Taylor piloted the No. 73 Corvette C6.R to the finish, placing fourth, while Oliver Gavin powered the No. 74 car to a seventh place finish.

Taylor, along with teammates Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen qualified only ninth, while Gavin, Richard Westrbook and Tommy Milner qualified eighth. The team made up a lot of ground in the morning, and persevered the entire race without any major incidents, but the field — which also went on without many issues — was simply too fast this year. Porsche AG Team Manthey took the top two spots in the GTE Pro class this year, Aston Martin Racing took third, and Corvette Racing was split by the pair of Ferraris, placing ahead of Team SRT and the pair of Vipers.

Audi Sport Team Joest won the race overall with the No. 02 R18 e-Tron Quattro LMP1 car, while Toyota Racing spoiled the German podium sweep with a second-place finish with the No. 08 TS030 Hybrid, with Audi again coming in third with the No. 03 R18 e-Tron Quattro. Another noteworthy circumstance is television actor and ALMS racer Patrick Depmsey (Grey’s Anatomy, AKA “Dr. McSteamy”), whose team finished fourth in the GTE Am category driving the No. 77 Porsche 997 GT3-RSR.

Regardless of how the race went, this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans will be remembered as the one where Aston Martin Racing GTE Am driver Allan Simonsen lost his life after a fatal crash in the opening minutes of the race.

It is expected that this will be the last Le Mans for the C6.R, with the inevitable Corvette C7.R on the horizon. That may even things out in favor of the Corvette Racing team.

Former staff.

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Comments

  1. The other two Corvettes also made it to the finish line and achieved 30th (No. 50) and 42nd (No. 70) place in the overall classification, and fifth and 11th in their category, GTE Am. They were entered by the French company Larbre competition. Larbre participates with car No. 50 in the “FIA World Endurance Championship” (WEC), organized by the ACO according to the Le Mans rules. ACO (Automobile Club de l’Ouest) is the organizer of the 24h of Le Mans.

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  2. I wonder how much the work on the new car affected their efforts this year.

    Many times a team building new cars ends up slowing development on the present cars since most of the staff is working on the new one.

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  3. I bet it was not competing in the WEC that hurt “Corvette Racing” more than anything else…the new Porsche Team (and also Aston-Martin) were able to get themselves performance enhancements, to “even out competition” from the FIA, ACO or whomever decides these things…Funny how these rules seem to have exactly the opposite effect…you don’t suppose its because these Teams sandbag ? You don’t suppose the surprising performance of the Viper SRT’s in ALMS is because they just have Viperspeed ? Politics has a way of invading everything and if Corvette is going to compete with the WEC teams then they had, by golly, better learn to take advantage of the rules too, ’cause everybody does ! Let’s see what kind of excuse the governing bodies come up with to not give the new C7.R performance advantages to start in 2014…

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