Corvette Racing Qualifies Ninth And Fourteenth In Class For Le Mans 2018
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Corvette Racing’s No. 63 and 64 Corvette C7.Rs will start from different rows at the 2018 24 Hours of Le Mans, after three rounds of qualifying produced ninth- and fourteenth-place results from the race cars in the GTE-Pro class. One GTE-Am racer – the No. 88 Porsche 911 RSR of Dempsey-Proton Racing – even managed to qualify ahead of the No. 64 Corvette, pushing the trio of Marcel Fassler, Oliver Gavin, and Tommy Milner back to the eighth row of GT cars.
Corvette Racing is trying this year for win number nine at the legendary French endurance race, but after practice on Test Day, the Corvette C7.R was one of five GTE-Pro cars to be handed Balance-of-Performance changes ahead of qualifying. Organizers mandated that both Corvettes must carry around an extra 10 kg of ballast weight. Yet after qualifying, more BoP changes were administered, according to Motorsport – not to Corvette Racing, but to two of its competitors. The Ford GT, which qualified in third, fifth, seventh, and eleventh in GTE Pro, was given 8 kg of ballast, while the dominating Porsche 911 RSR was handed 10 kg.
The No. 91 Porsche 911 RSR blew away the rest of the GT field in qualifying on Wednesday, with driver Gianmaria Bruni setting a blistering 3-minute, 47.5-second lap that no one was able to come close to. The closest competitor was Porsche’s own No. 92 car, which set a 3:49.1 fast lap – more than a second-and-a-half slower.
For the first time since 2011, Corvette Racing will be contending Le Mans without either Taylor brother – Ricky or Jordan – on the team. Jordan Taylor, who was a part of the three-driver team that won the race for Corvette in 2015, has been replaced by Audi factory driver Mike Rockenfeller. Ricky Taylor will be racing in LMP2, at the helm of the No. 34 Jackie Chan DC Racing Ligier JSP 217. That car qualified sixteenth in class, out of a field of twenty cars.
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What happened to “the car is faster then it’s ever been because of the new Michelin tires, improvement’s in aero and caster/camber settings”?
Well as of 5:30 pacific there running 7th & 15th!
13th &14th? Can’t win them all I guess!
The #63 Corvette finished as 21st overall and 5th in class, behind 2 Porsche 911 RSR and 2 Ford GT. It made 342 laps (the overall winner 388).
The #64 Corvette was retired after 259 laps run in 18:19:34.039, i.e. less than 6 hours before the end of the race. A total of 14 cars of the 60 at start retired.
From what I read at about 6:am Pacific was way different, it did say the Toyotas won!
Just looked again, you are correct, doh’no what I was looking at but 5th is better then 13th obviously.
I’ll have to check my history when I get home to see what I was looking at?
You read right, the overall winners where the two Toyota TS50 Hybrid, running in the top LMP1 class.
Read again carefully what I wrote: “The #63 Corvette finished as 21st overall and 5th in class” and note the word “overall”.
The 24 Hours Le Mans reglement has four classes of cars, two “prototype” cars, i.e. cars which are designed just for racing, and two GT classes, with cars who are also sold to regular customers (even if the version used for racing is mostly an enhanced version similar to the regular market car).
The GT classes are for a number of years now divided als GTE Pro and GTE Am, with the “E” meaning “Endurance”, like in WEC (World Endurance Championship), and Pro is professional and AM amateur. The drivers in the amateur class are also professionals, i.e. people who earn their living by driving cars in automobile races, but at least one of the three drivers has to be a real amateur, as far as I understand.
What I saw (pre-Cup of Joe) was “[BREAKING] Toyota take his historic @24hoursoflemans win with 1 2” (not sure what the “his” part is, lack of coffee on there part?). With all the top three class finishers below that. Making me think I was reading a post race report. What I was looking at was the qualifying results!
I guess some of us really need our coffee?
http://www.sportingnews.com/other-sports/news/24-hours-le-mans-2018-live-stream-updates-results-tv-schedule/14fawl257atvr17zhsw4k42ab3
No, no, you were not looking at the qualifying results, but those were mentioned in the intitial paragraph of the linked report on the final classification:
>>
The 2018 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world’s most challenging endurance race, finally was Toyota’s time to shine. Qualifying results placed the pair of Toyota TS050 Hybrids on the pole and No. 2 starting positions for the race, which began Saturday at 9 a.m. ET (3 p.m. in France) and ENDED SUNDAY at the same time with the same two cars atop the field.
<< (my emphasis)
You might want to consult the official table of the results downloadable at the organizers website:
https://assets.lemans.org/explorer/pdf/courses/2018/24-heures-du-mans/classification/race/24-heures-du-mans-2018-final-classification-summary.pdf
It shows on the final pages also the classification in the four individual classes.
You can browse that site to find PDFs with the regulations of the race.
I was looking at was the qualifying results, That page has since been updated!
Hope next year turns out better if it’s the C7’s last run at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Add the latest BoP to the existing and the c7 has double the BoP.