Corvette Racing’s Tommy Milner made a daring last lap pass on the Ford GT of Richard Westbrook to take the GTLM win in Sunday’s IMSA Continental Tire Road Race Showcase at Road America.
Milner sat fifth in the No. 4 Corvette C7.R when the field made a third and final restart with 5 minutes remaining in the 2 hour and 40 minute race. Westbrook led the GTLM field to green, followed by the No. 62 Ferrari 488 GTE of Toni Vilander in second and the No. 911 Porsche 911 of Nick Tandy in third.
Tandy attempted to move up the inside of both the Ford and the Ferrari in Turn 5 and spun after making slight contact. Meanwhile, Milner had found his way around the No. 912 Porsche sister car of Frederic Makowiecki, moving him up to third.
Milner took second place when Vilander made contact with the No. 55 Mazda Prototype of Tristan Nunez. It was then Corvette vs. Ford in a final lap battle for the lead, with Milner finding his way around Westbrook’s slightly damaged GT rather easily to take the win by 0.730 seconds.
“It was a wild swing of emotions,” Milner said post-race. “My mindset at the end of the race was to hopefully catch the Porsche in front of me and try to make something there. During the yellow they said on the radio there was a chance we could restart but we might finish under yellow. I went from bummed to not being able to race for fourth to seeing all of the guys ahead of us.”
“Then seeing the Ford in the lead, knowing how close we are in points, I sort of hoped we’d be there. Everything happened in front of me. The Porsche spun, then the Ferrari got taken out, I got some help for sure. I was able to get by the 912 and then get close to the Ford. It looked like they were a little hurt, but I don’t know how we went from fifth with three laps to go.”
The result marks Corvette Racing’s 101st win and comes just after the team scored its 100th win at Lime Rock Park. The result helped Milner and Gavin grow their driver’s championship lead to 13 points over Westbrook and his No. 67 co-driver Ryan Briscoe and also grows Chevy’s lead over Ford to 10 points.
The IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship heads to Virginia International Raceway next for the Michelin GT Challenge. Click here for full results from Road America and here for a complete schedule for VIR.
Comments
While their car is still at a disadvantage they are are a team that never gives up and hold dome of the smartest drivers in the field.
Job well done Pratt and Miller!
Corvette is going to need a SC or a TC engine for next year because, they are being out powered. Scott 3 Do you know if they will have a Force Induction engine, next year, there going to need it?
No, they’re not being outpowered. They’re being restricted to death. There’s a huge difference. Left to their own devices, there would be no other competition for them in their class. TPTB have their favorites however and restrict the Vettes way, way down on power. Got nothing to do with ‘out powered’ by anyone.
What difference does anything the team or drivers do whem IMSA’s BoP seems to be affecting race outcome anyway?
Well tigrisan, like I said before, wonder what they are going to do next year ? They aren’t going to open up those restrictors anymore, what they have now is not going to work next year, Porsche is getting ready to have tc engine next year. I hope that these corvette next year will be these new ZR1 C7 GTE car with new SC V8 engine.
It doesn’t matter what configuration they run. They can run the mid-engine that’s being tested now, doesn’t matter. it’s what they get stuck running under that makes the difference and even with the motors they have now, they’re still faster than any other in their class except for the constraints. Wishful thinking isn’t going to change that.
These c8 corvette will have a better aero, mid-engine. Wishful thinking your the one, thinking some how a better bop will help them win, I’m just seeing what’s going on here and it’s not good.
Sorry, first hand knowledge here so I’ll still disagree.
Then corvette will never win a race again, and will be running in the back all the time. There is no way you can balance a NA engine cars with a sc or TT engine cars it will never work, and it’s not working now, that didn’t even happen went there was no bop’s back in the day. If you have so much great knowledge, then take it corvette racing and pratt and miller and tell them what you told me. That’s all I have too said about it.