Corvette Racing is building out a fourth Corvette C8.R chassis as part of its preparation for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in August.
According to Sportscar365, the Michigan-based team is currently in the process of building an additional Corvette C8.R chassis in order to compartmentalize its IMSA and FIA WEC programs. The No. 4 Corvette C8.R that won its class in last weekend’s IMSA round at Detroit will become the No. 64 car for Le Mans, while the No. 63 car that raced at the FIA WEC 6H of Spa season opener last month will remain in Europe for Le Mans in August.
The new chassis currently being built will also be shipped to Europe as a backup car for Le Mans and will be air freighted to France following the IMSA round at Road America on August 8th. The No. 3 Corvette C8.R chassis that currently competes in IMSA will remain in the U.S.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans was postponed from its initial June 12-13 date to August 21-22. Despite the postponement, Corvette Racing has still faced some logistical challenges in getting its cars from the U.S. to France – mostly due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“We used to be able to just air freight everything over and now it’s so expensive to air freight things,” team manager Marc Maurini told Sportscar365. “We’re looking at whether it’s cheaper to buy things ahead of time and sea-freight them.”
“For instance, [instead of] air-freighting a set of wheels, we’re buying new wheels and having them shipped directly from BBS to Germany,” Maurini added. “But I don’t see any red flags for us. Obviously Le Mans is something this program has done for a while and we’re pretty well-versed in it.
“It’s just COVID this year makes it a little more difficult.”
Next on the docket for Corvette Racing and the Corvette C8.R is the IMSA Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen on June 27th, 2021. The team last competed at the Six Hours of the Glen in 2019, with the No. 3 Corvette C8.R of Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia finished second in class behind the race-winning No. 911 Porsche 911 of Patrick Pilet and Nick Tandy.
Subscribe to GM Authority for more GM motorsports and racing news, IMSA racing news, Corvette Racing news and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Comments
I want to see Corvette compete in the new Lmdh racing. Acura, Porsche, BMW, have already said they were competing. What I keep reading is GM is going to compete with Cadillac, although I love Cadillac nothing says racing like Corvette. What better why for GM/Chevrolet to continue to show the world what a dominate sports car Corvette is. Please GM don’t listen to those bean counters, it’s time for Corvette to take its rightful place in the sports car world.
I’ll do you one better… Take it directly to Ferrari and Toyota, build out a Corvette LMH and compete in WEC. An american manufacturer hasn’t won the top class of LeMans for a hot minute… and I agree; Corvette is more synonymous with high performance than Cadillac is.
Gary here’s the real trouble. Corvette is a model of a production car and not a brand or division of a MFG.
Cadillac. BMW, Audi and Peugeot are all brands and not specific models of cars. The cars they are running are full blown prototype cars that share nothing with any production model. They may loosely have some similar engine parts but little else.
GM played this game with he Daytona Prototypes and tried to call them Corvettes and it was a joke as there was nothing Corvette about them.
It is best to let the Cadillac gang play race car in the Hybrid Prototype as they have no suitable cars to run in the other classes. Let Corvette use a production based car to run the GTD Pro class agains the other production based raced cars and really run what they build and what you can buy.
Stop the bean counter crap here. This is expensive for all the exposure they get. But it is the best show case to run a production based. car in anymore.
I do agree Corvette should be in its rightful place with the other production based race cars and not some high dollar class with a few token emblems shared on the car and production car.
The real sad part is these hybrid cars are the stepping stone to EV racing. I don’t fear that but the added cost may make it more difficult for other mfgs to join in.
Sports car racing was at its peak in the 80’s with IMSA. the cost drove off so many and it has never really recovered.
I was there those years and it was crazy the number and kinds of cars on the track all at once. I treasure the race where the GTO class was Camaro and Mustangs that were full blown tube chassis cars racing a F40 from Ferrari and it was a production car with bigger turbo’s, Cams and a F1 car digital dash. Even the doors still opened. If not for a cut tire at Mid Ohio it would have won.
Thank you for commenting back, you made some great points. I must admit you made me see some other points than just showing off how dominate Corvette can be. Your right about IMSA being great in the 1980s o was a kid and I would watch those races on ESPN back in the day.
If they’re going for bang for buck, it makes total sense to build on something that people know around the world… Corvette may not be a brand on the same international level as Porsche or Ferrari… but it sure as hell it’s a bigger brand than Cadillac in terms of motorsport.
If GM went with the LMH platform, they’d at least have the freedom to add their own design language to the cars, which is what Ferrari is doing, and this would nullify the problem they had with the Daytona Prototypes. A Corvette-based LMH would raise the profile of their halo product, which is the benefit of competing on the top class.
The run that Corvette is on is truly amazing. The only thing that could improve the mark is if it were spun off into its own division. The mark has earned that. Although Chevrolet is proud of Corvette, the Corvette has outgrown Chevrolet. Certainly the value of General Motors would increase if Corvette were spun off as its own Division.