Corvette Racing couldn’t pull out a win in TUDOR United Sportscar Championship action at Road America Sunday, with Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia bringing the No. 3 C7.R home in fourth place. Porsche, meanwhile, nearly swept the podium, with Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet claiming first in the No. 911 Porsche and teammates Jorg Bergmeister and Earl Bamber following closely in second.
Magnussen started from the front row after qualifying second in the No. 3 C7.R with a time of 2:02.608. The race winning Porsche of Tandy and Pilet started from eighth position due to an unplanned engine change earlier on in the weekend, however thanks to some handy work from Pilet, the car was up to third within the race’s first hour.
While the Porsches thrived, the Corvettes struggled. Magnussen made slight contact with PC driver Mirco Schultis at Canada Corner in the race’s second hour as both the No. 3 and No. 4 C7.Rs failed to match the Porsches’ pace. Luckily for Corvette Racing, their closest competitors in the drivers’ championship, BMW Team RLL’s Bill Auberlen and Dirk Werner, also failed to match the pace of Tandy and Pilet’s 911 and turned up fifth.
Both the Porsches and Ferraris have recently been given balance of performance adjustments in order to make them more competitive. After the No. 911 car easily leapt from the back of the field to the front Sunday, some are saying the BoP adjustments are not fair, including BMW Team RLL co-owner Bobby Rahal.
“It was a very disappointing day,” Rahal said. “We did the best we could with what we had. The BoP adjustments that have been given to Porsche and Ferrari over the last few races is not balanced. I know it is going to be a tough last part of the year if it continues like this.”
BMW Team RLL driver John Edwards also added in his two cents on the BoP adjustments.
“On days like today there is not too much you can do. We are two seconds off the Porsches. We will have a post race team meeting to review the situation, but at the end of the day we are not going to find two seconds,” he said.
The No. 4 C7.R of Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin crossed the finish line in seventh behind BMW Team RLL’s two Z4 GT3s. Corvette Racing will be looking to catch up to Porsche and Ferrari while also holding off the BMWs as the TUDOR United Sportscar Championship heads to VIR for the Oak Tree Grand Prix on August 23rd. For full results from the Continental Tire Road Race Showcase at Road America, click here.
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