Corvette Racing Completes IMSA GTLM Championship Sweep At Petit Le Mans
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Corvette Racing completed a sweep of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship GTLM driver’s, manufacturer’s and team championships at Petit Le Mans this weekend with a 3-4 finish for its No. 4 and No. 3 Corvette C7.Rs, respectively.
In order to lock down the GTLM driver’s title, No. 4 Corvette pilots Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin needed to finish seventh or better in class. Joined by part-time Corvette driver Marcel Fassler, the pair drove a smart and consistent race to earn a podium position after starting from seventh on the grid.
Milner started off the race for the No. 4 team and by the end of his two-hour, 30-minute stint had worked his way up to second with help from his pit crew. Gavin then took over and moved into first just after a full-course caution was put out 3 hours and 30 minutes into the race. Gavin never dipped below second before handing the car off to Fassler for his turn.
Fassler had a solid stint before going off track at Turn One, but he was able to recover well and was back in the top five before the end of his stint. He then handed things back off to Milner, who put the car in podium contention before handing driving duties over to Gavin for a final 75-minute stint.
The No. 3 C7.R of Garcia, Magnussen and Rockenfeller started from second and ran in podium contention for much of the race until a mistake in the pits caused them to lose track position. Magnussen then took over from Garcia and charged through the field before the Corvette suffered a throttle malfunction, which cost the team about four laps with two hours to go. However with smart driving and quick pit stops, the team was able to recover for a top five result.
After another successful season, the Corvette Racing team will take a short break until January 28th, when the 2017 IMSA season kicks off with the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Click here for full results from Petit Le Mans and here to view the final 2016 IMSA season standings.
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corvette still won after ford GT sandbagged early in the season to run without a performance adjustment at le mans to equal the ferrari and corvette performance.
I will give the series here a thumbs up on the BoP system they used. they did pretty well with it.
At this point only Porsche and Weather Tech is mad.
The sand bagging was only at Lemans and IMSA does not control that.
To be competitive in Europe they will need to move to new car. WEC controls things there and they favor the mid engine cars in this class.
Pratt and Miller should do well no matter where this goes. We may not always get the call but this time we did. IMSA knew after taking away the championship the last two years with Bop they could not do it again. Will they get it right next year who knows.
the mid engine car has a advantage if they have to race in the rain. weather tech is the series sponsor and that don’t look good. wonder when we are going to see ford GTs in the dealer show rooms. IMSA is run by the NASCAR crowd and they have years of experience making sure who wins the championship like the did for dale sr by letting last years champion first pick in the pit stall pick. I am a dale sr. fan for years but a blind man could see what they were doing. I watched dale sr. and bill jr. going out to dinner a lot of nights while in daytona