The No. 63 Corvette C7.R has finished seventh in GTE Pro at Le Mans in a tough outing to France for Corvette Racing. The No. 64 sister car retired from the race in the 16th hour following a heavy shunt with Tommy Milner at the wheel.
Corvette Racing started from the back of the GTE Pro grid Saturday following a tough qualifying session that saw the No. 64 and No. 63 cars qualify 13th and 14th, respectively. The race started under a safety car due to rain, with the green flag coming out 52 minutes after the clock started.
Both Corvettes quickly made up ground, penetrating the top ten in GTE Pro and running as high as fifth at points. Disaster struck in the 16th hour, however, with Tommy Milner getting loose in the No. 64 C7.R at Turn 1 before putting the car on the grass and hitting the tire wall. Milner emerged from the car uninjured and returned to the Corvette Racing garage shortly after.
With the No. 64 car out, Corvette Racing put all their resources behind the No. 63 entry. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be enough, with the team unable to catch the GTE Pro frontrunners in the race’s closing hours.
When the checkered flag came out, the pole-sitting No. 68 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT of Dirk Mueller was leading the No. 82 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE by over a minute. Mueller would go on to take the win, with Risi’s Giancarlo Fisichella finishing second. The No. 69 Ford GT claimed the final podium spot.
In a wonderful display of sportsmanship, veteran driver Jan Magnussen let Ricky Taylor stay in the No. 63 C7.R for the checkered flag. The Dane was to close out the race for the team, but seeing as it was Taylor’s first Le Mans outing with Corvette Racing, he wanted the 26-year old to experience the special moment.
An incredible gesture by @janmagnussen. He says to let @RickyTaylor_10 finish the race. #Respect #1Team #Corvette #C7R
— Corvette Racing (@CorvetteRacing) June 19, 2016
Comments
Damn shame they worked so hard to get cars ready for a race that’s only designed for bragging rights and the winners are chosen in advance on the whim of TPTB. We knew from the start it would be a Ford/Ferrari finish because of Ford’s anniversary entrance and the battle the first couple years they raced. This ending, after all the restrictions and such, was not a surprise at all.
Corvette racing better had learn to play the sandbagging game where the index of performance adjustment are used.
It’s the fact that GM does NOT play this BSoP game that makes me respect them. Ford is forever associated with corruption of this race now. I will never ever consider buying from cheaters. Corvette is my next car.
Sandbagging would not have made a difference, even if they were inclined to do that, which they’re not. The race was political from the start and the winners chosen the minute Ford announced it was going. TPTB wanted another infamous Ford/Ferrari shoot out and that’s what they set it all up to end with.
I rarely post comments on the Internet, but this unethical event cannot slip by without comment. The whole concept of limiting the strongest and most successful to allow the slowest and least deserving vehicles to win is as close to creeping Socialism as any sport can get. If a racehorse in the Kentucky Derby had to wear a heavy saddle, or run with one horseshoe missing, there would be an outcry and the issue of a lack of ethics would arise, If a world class tennis player had to play with a tiny racquet because they were champions it would be condemned. But in the minds of the IMSA executives, it is appropriate to restrict the champions like Porsche and Corvette to allow the newcomers from Ford a chance to win. If Winston Churchill were alive today he may well have said this of IMSA and BoP: “Bop is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its’ inherent value is the equal sharing of misery” It might just be worthwhile for Corvette, Porsche, Ferrari and BMW to threaten withdrawal from IMSA in order to remove the blight of mechanical socialism from our sport. Well done all LeMans teams. Shame on Ford for an exceptionally hollow and unethical faux victory.
I’m sure each tennis player has to use a racket that follows certain rules. In racing the driver is considered the athlete not the cars, so they need them to be all similar. I don’t typically follow racing but I thought Ford had to reduce the amount of boost they were using for the race?
that was lowered after they raised it because of the sandbagging on the test. I think it ended up where they started before the first test and corvette was the fastest and ford and Ferrari were sand bagging. I know people who work for pratt and miller so I will find out what was going on.
Corvette was given a certain restriction prior to going over for practice. Once there, they were told they’d have to drop 2thou. Then another 2-3thou so by the time they got done, where every thou on the restrictor size is 5 horse and at least a mile per hour, they were down enough power to be 4 seconds off the pace. When Ford ran so much faster after qualifying and after they had a little weight added back, they got a tap on the back of the hand and TPTB gave the Vettes back 2thou. Not enough to make any discernable difference, but just enough so people would think TPTB weren’t playing favorites. And I know all of this because husband builds the motor in the #64 though in this instance, he supervised another builder on it. But we knew last Monday, when all this crap started about the restrictions that it was a set up for a Ford/Ferrari finish. TPTB penalized first the Vettes ,then Porsche, then the rest of the field but NOT the Ford or Ferrari until it looked like they were setting things up exactly that way. And when they did lift some restrictions in the rest of the field, it still wasn’t anything close to what it should have been. The least they could have done was let the Vettes go back to their original configuration but they didn’t even do that.
It’s all politics over there. All of it. Bragging rights. And that Ford originally only had a two year commitment on the GT program so TPTB managed to set them up for a win to expand said program.
Politics.
The success and dominance of the Ford GT is proof for why there needs to be a mid-engine Corvette or Cadillac flagship.
What success? What dominance? They won ONE race, that was fixed by the LeMans in charge people in order to see a Ford/Ferrari showdown because Henry II hated Ferrari and that started the original battle between the two. Since it was Ford’s anniversary of their first race, it was set up to see that same thing happen again. What about any of that do you not understand? Mid-engine has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Ain’t gonna happen.
corvettes beat the mid engine Ferraris before when all were equal in performance.