The No. 4 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R brought home a second consecutive GTLM-class win at the Long Beach round of the 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, earning valuable points that have moved the team up to second place in the team championship standings. The Corvette took the lead with little more than 20 minutes left in the 100-minute race shortly after a restart, when the class leader – the No. 912 Porsche 911 RSR – suffered a suspension failure. With Tommy Milner at the helm, the C7.R successfully held off the No. 67 Ford GT in second for the win.
The No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R of Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia narrowly missed out on a podium spot, ceding third place to the No. 66 Ford GT. With that, each of the top-four GTLM race cars was from an American manufacturer.
Corvette’s win on the streets of Long Beach mark the Corvette Racing program‘s 107th win, and driver Oliver Gavin‘s 48th career win in IMSA – his 50th win with Corvette Racing overall. Gavin is now tied with Johnny O’Connell for the most career IMSA wins in history.
“Amazing the way that all came around,” said Gavin – a five-time 24 Hours of Le Mans GT-class winner with Corvette. “Yes, we had a little bit of luck, but Tommy had to drive brilliantly at the end there and stay out of trouble. There were a number of incidents there. Man, we could have gotten taken out. We could have gotten in the wall. Tommy just navigated. We had a great pit stop and the guys did an amazing job at the stop. We jumped a number of people and put us in position there so we could challenge for that victory. And we got it!
“That is our first win in season No. 20 for Corvette Racing. And it is my 50th victory with the team. That is pretty amazing. I am just thrilled.”
Corvette Racing will continue its 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship racing season next month at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Showdown on May 6th.
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Thank you for the scoop on Long Beach, Aaron!