Corvette Racing’s Antonio Garcia is expecting the GTE Pro class to be faster at the 24 Hours of Le Mans this year than it was in 2015, the Spaniard told Motorsport.
Garcia was fastest in the FIA World Endurance Championship’s GTE Pro class at Le Mans Test day last weekend, lapping the world famous Le Sarthe circuit in 3:55.122 in his No. 63 Corvette C7.R. While that time is slower than last year’s pole position lap, it’s faster than the teams were running during Test Day in 2015, Garcia said.
“The new GTE Pro cars have changed,” Garcia said. “In this low-downforce trim we are very fast on the straight compared to last year – with a little bit more downforce too.”
“Actually we are at least two or three seconds faster than last year at the test,” he added. “I don’t know how fast we will be on qualifying or during the race but for sure so far, if the track is supposed to be green now, I mean, it would be way, way finer during the race.”
Garcia also commented on he and the team’s eagerness to race with Chip Ganassi Racing and Ford at Le Mans. CGR’s pair of Ford GT’s are a common site for Corvette Racing seeing as they race alongside the cars at IMSA, however the FIA WEC Ford GTs will also be joining the two IMSA cars at Le Mans.
“It’s always good to have a manufacturer back and to have such a big manufacturer like Ford is really, really good for us,” said Garcia. “We saw that during the initial part of the season back in America. We seem to have a really strong line-up of cars over there and we showed today that.”
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