The No. 63 Corvette C8.R of Jordan Taylor, Antonio Garcia and Nicky Catsburg settled for a runner-up finish in the GTE Pro class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans following an intense battle with the race-winning No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 Alessandro Pier Guidi, Come Ledogar and James Calado.
All three drivers of the No. 63 car opened up the 24-hour endurance race with a double stint, which carried the team into the night. The race eventually evolved into a two-car battle between the No. 63 and the No. 51 Ferrari, although all six remaining cars in GTE Pro were on the lead lap by the race’s halfway point.
There were two race-ending crashes in the GTE Pro class, with the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Porsche 911 RSR wrecking out of the race shortly after the 10-hour mark and the Hub Auto Racing Porsche 911 RSR retiring around the 16-hour mark. This left only five cars in GTE Pro as the sun came up Sunday morning.
The No. 63 Corvette C8.R ran at the sharp end of the field all race, with all three drivers turning in clean and consistent stints. The team attempted to reel the No. 51 Ferrari with a couple hours remaining by triple stinting their Michelin tires, but couldn’t make up the necessary ground and was forced to settle for second. The runner-up finish was an impressive result for the Corvette C8.R, however, which had never raced at Le Mans before Saturday.
Things were a bit less rosy on the other side of the Corvette Racing garage. The No. 64 Corvette of Nicky Tandy, Tommy Milner and Alexander Sims was hit in the rear by the eventual race-winning Ferrari on the formation lap, damaging its rear diffuser and putting the team on the back foot from Lap 1. Milner overcame the deficit and even led the GTE Pro field in the wet on the first lap, however the diffuser eventually broke off around hour five, sending the team to the garage for lengthy repairs. They later returned to the garage twice more for gearbox, clutch and alternator repairs. The No. 64 car was classified sixth in class – although Sims managed to set a new GTE Pro lap record of 3:47.501.
Click here to view full results from the 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans.
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Comments
Good job, Team Corvette. Better to come in second to a Ferrari instead of a Porsche.
Props to Ferrari. They were just that bit quicker. Amazing reliability from both Ferrari 😮 and Corvette.
The top class should be much more interesting next year.
Please don’t compare a corvette to a Ferrari it makes you sound very dumb. Corvette = plastic junk
Corvette also = much better bang for your buck!
Please nobody who could afford a Ferrari would agree with you so just stop
When they get whipped in their Ferrari by a base model C8 at the track they wouldn’t admit to it and being embarrassed either would they
Back in 2016 Ford brought out the new GT to lemans for the first time and won after a tight battle with Ferrari.
Totally false. It was not a tight battle. In spite of parts failures and screwups in the pits, the GT went from 20 minutes behind to the lead in less than two of hours. The spokesman for Aston said that the GTs were toying with them and were proven correct. Both Ferrari and Aston Martin protested. In press interviews they admitted that they sandbagged in the BOP tests and that the GTs cheated even more. The ford GT win is meaningless. Before you retort look at the laptimes you will see I’m accurate.
Nobody cares wolf
Please don’t contribute to the fake news problem we have. Again anyone who could afford a Ferrari would not agree. The corvette is nothing but a poor mans Ferrari or do I need to remind you of the c8 the fool had and tried to make a Ferrari?
I understand you are broke and the corvette is all you can afford but please don’t act like it’s some high end vehicle thanks.
I have had 14 Corvettes and 1 Ferrari. As a competition driving instructor I have had the privelege of driving a lot of awesome cars. They all have their special feel that makes them great. As for the Ferrari snobs out there… I met a Bugatti collector that owns 3 Veyrons. He refers to Ferrari owners as peasants with small trust funds and unearned attitudes. Its all relative. As soon as C8s prices come down I #15 will be mine.
Right sure you did. Hey wolf guess what my neighbor has 4 bugatti chirons 3 veyrons he also owns a laferrari has a mclaren f1 and a p1 speed tail also is his newest addition. You see how easy those lies are?
I’ve own both, a I had a 2004 Ferrari 360 Spider and have had several corvettes, and currently own a C8. My Ferrari had 15 times the mechanical problems of any corvette I had. Anyone that wants to talk about the quality of a Ferrari likely doesn’t even know anyone that has owned one. I can tell you first hand, that the quality is nothing like you believe it is. It’s a very small car company building high end cars with all parts built buy other suppliers. And don’t even get me started on the price of the parts and the availability. My car sat out of commission for more then it was drivable. Now I’m hoping the newer ones are better, because if the world ever gets back to normal, I’ll likely buy another one, newer one this time. As for calling a corvette junk, some people may have had bad experiences, I have had pretty good. My C8 has had zero issues so far and a 2008 I had had zero issues. Pretty hard to beat that. the 90s models were bit more problematic.
@Gene:
Regarding your claim that Ferrari is “a very small car company building high end cars with all parts built buy other suppliers.” —
Actually, Ferrari was since 1996 a subsidiary of FIAT or FIAT’s successor FCA, with a Ferrari-heir as minority partner. In 2016, FCA’s dominating shareholder EXOR decided to bring Ferrari independently to the stock exchanges, but still keeping a dominating share of voting rights in Ferrari.
In the segment of the super sports cars, Ferrari is not a small company, but one of the big players.
This does not necessarily contradict that your 360 Spider was of a inferiour quality.
After 24 hours of hard racing the gap between first and second was only 42 seconds.
And the third classified in GTEpro class was 1 lap behind, the #92 Porsche 911 RSR – 19 of the Porsche GTE Team. As mentioned in the article, the fastest lap of GTEpro class was the one by the #64 Corvette of 3:47.501.
Race winning formula for Ferrari. Take out your competition at the start. Get no penalty. Win the race. I like LeMans but the whole BOP cheating thing takes a lot away. The best example was the Ford GT runaway win. Both Ford and Aston protested admitting that they cheated and for Ford to just walk away on the straights they must have cheated more… Which of course they did.
Cry some more wolf
This time the BOP change benefited Corvette as in qualifying and practice they were not as strong till the BOP change the night before.
Many like to complain when it goes against the Vette but no one recognize the benefits when the get help.
I was surprised how strong the C8.R’s were. Porsche was almost nowhere.
Next 24 Hours of Le Mans on 11-12 Juni 2022, with new car classes.
(The official Le Mans website in English says 2021, only the French language one knows that next year is 2022).
www
24h-lemans dot com/en/news/see-you-on-11-12-june-2021-for-the-90th-24-hours-of-le-mans-55543
It’s the same frogs translating the page…
And we had the 2020 Olympics this month…nothing makes sense anymore
@Chris re “And we had the 2020 Olympics this month…”
Well, this is real. Officially the Games of the XXXII (32nd) Olympiad, branded as the branded as Tokyo 2020 were postponed by a year because of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. It were still the games of the 32nd Olympiad (a period of 4 years).
This year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans were the 89th performance of this race, and the 90th would be next year, which is 2022. Apparently, the editors of the english web site did a copy-and-past job from the announcement of this year’s (the 89th) and only changed the serial number from 89 to 90, but forgot to update the year, too.
All that make these comments, when you have owned or own a Ferrari, then comment. Ferrari is still Ferrari and no body with the opportunity to choose which one to own would not pick the Ferrari
If I had $300,000 today to spend on a Ferrari or Corvette, I would much rather spend that $300,000 on 4 Corvette’s than 1 Ferrari.
Luckily you will never have that problem since you won’t ever have an extra $300k to spend
I would rather have a beer with a corvette driver any day of the week over a glass of Chardonnay or Yaeger Bomb with the typical Ferrari driver…
Until the corvette driver realized you are bum and peeled out the parking lot before you made it inside. Typical trump supporter trash
🤣🤣
Those unknowing elitist snobs on here fawning over FIAT’s Ferrari can not only not afford one of FIAT’s hand-built cars but have zero experience with how, if you do own a Ferrari, you’d better be on a first name basis with your Ferrari mechanic and take him/her Birthday and Christmas presents when you dip into the old Trust Fund to finance the outrageously expensive and often needed maintenance. You’d better be praying that Giovanni at the Modena factory that built your engine was having a good day when your turn came.
I must correct you on “FIAT’s Ferrari”. It is long time ago that Ferrari was a subsidiary of FIAT. It is no longer. FIAT is one of 14 brands of Stellantis, and Ferrari is an independent company.
Let me quote from en.Wikipedia’s article on Ferrari:
»
Ferrari S.p.A. (/fəˈrɑːri/; Italian: [ferˈraːri]) is an Italian luxury sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy. Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1939 out of the Alfa Romeo race division as Auto Avio Costruzioni, the company built its first car in 1940, and produced its first Ferrari-badged car in 1947.
Fiat S.p.A. acquired 50% of Ferrari in 1969 and expanded its stake to 90% in 1988.
In October 2014, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) announced its intentions to separate Ferrari S.p.A. from FCA; as of the announcement FCA owned 90% of Ferrari.
The separation began in October 2015 with a restructuring that established Ferrari N.V. (a company incorporated in the Netherlands) as the new holding company of the Ferrari S.p.A. group, and the subsequent sale by FCA of 10% of the shares in an IPO and concurrent listing of common shares on the New York Stock Exchange. Through the remaining steps of the separation, FCA’s interest in Ferrari’s business was distributed to shareholders of FCA, with 10% continuing to be owned by Piero Ferrari. The spin-off was completed on 3 January 2016.
«
Please note, that FCA does not exist any longer, it merged 50:50 with PSA in January 2021 to form a new company named Stellantis.
The above also ignores who is the main share holder of FIAT, FCA, and Ferrari: the Agnelli familiy since some decades thru their 2nd level holding EXOR N.V., which holds or held a controlling stake of FCA and Ferrari of about 30%, but with overwhelming voting rights. In the new company Stellantis, EXOR only holds 14.5% of the shares, and no extra voting rights.
Today the only relations between Ferrari and Stellantis are
• in both companies, EXOR is the largest shareholder;
• Ferrari provides the engines for the Alfa Romeo branded Formula 1 racing company Sauber;
• Ferrari did or maybe still does proved engines for Maserati cars, but the 3 liter V6 of the new Maserati sports car MC20 has been developed in house by Maserati engineers.
Alfa Romeo and Maserati are, as FIAT, brands of the global Stellantis corporation.
I hope that helps
A very wordy answer to a question nobody asked. So its not a FIAT. It is owned by the company that owns FIAT. So the money in my left pocket is an autonomous fund from the money in my right pocket.
The “nobody” who wrote nonsense about Ferrari and Fiat was “billj598”, and that needed to be corrected. It is my habit to inform, and not to spew just insults.
EXOR does not own Ferrari, has just 22.9% of the shares, and 35.8% of voting rights (this happens to be the top news today on their website, exor dot com).
And at Stellantis, which owns the FIAT brand (plus Dodge, Ram, Chrysler, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Peugeot, Opel et.al.), EXOR just owns 14.5% of the shares, far from having a controlling share.
If you have a share of Stellantis, you too are not an owner of the company.
Those people here who wage a spitting match about the Ferrari brand, obviously have no understanding at all of the automobile industry.
gm is owned by the government so 🤷♂️
LOL yep exactly.
Anyone can save up their money and one day buy a Corvette, that’s why I respect that car.
With the large number of super cars now selling new for way over $1 million dollars, Ferrari is a budget super car.
If it is over $1 million it had better be a hypercar. If not that makes the Ferrari the Volkswagen of euro supercars?
As previously asked: Greg, which Ferrari do you have? I’ve owned 3, and didn’t buy a 4th when the 430 didn’t come with three pedals…I have a z06 c7, 7 speed, have owned a 2006 Ford Gt, bought new, and my corvette is the best sports car I have ever owned, hands down.
I’m sorry JJ nobody told you did they? We are talking about real cars not your hot wheels toys. I’m glad you like playing with your toy cars still.
The Ferrari ran a great race, and all you Vette fan boys can make ALL the excuses you wish to. The #51Ferrari toyed with the Vettes, and so what if the 5th place Vette had the fastest lap time. The Ferrari could’ve done that lap after IF THEY WANTED TO. This is the 4th LeMans win for the #51 Ferrari since the WEC came to be in 2012, Ferrari owns LeMans, the track is eminently suited to its setup, the Vette is not. 2015 was the last time the Vette won its class at LeMans, by sheer luck I might add, if you had watched the race you’d know the story. Bottom line is the Ferrari won LeMans in the GT-PRO category, Ferrari will join the Hypercar class soon, this Hypercar class is a class that is seemingly tailor made for Ferrari because that what they’ve always done. They have the ENZO, FXX, LaFerrari, MC12 and others to draw their inspiration….Ferrari will dominate that class, I’m just hoping one day they see F1 as I do, a worn out series that died in 2008….LeMans is Ferrari, Ferrari is LeMans….not some damn yellow car from half a world away…
Ferrari spends the big bucks to dominate Lemans because it is no longer competitive in F-1, where they regularly get their asses kicked.
Ferrari is making their way back in F1. Won’t win anything this year (it’s between Red Bull and Mercedes), but 2022 is up for grabs.
True. The 2 Ferrari drivers occupy currently places 6 and 7 (of 20) in the drivers championship, and in the constructors (or team) Ferrari is 3rd, with 181 points far behind Mercedes and Red Bull, and only 11 points before McLaren. So to say, in the top of the “other”.
Ferrari MC12? You actually do mean the Maserati MC12.
Which was developed in close collaboration with the Ferrari ‘Enzo Ferrari’, back then when both brands were part of the FIAT empire, and produced in 2004 and 2005. Quite short lived.
Today Maserati is one of 14 brands of Stellantis, and Ferrari an independent company.
A year ago, Maserati presented its MC20, and it is expected that the first examples of that car will be available by the end of this year.
While the engine of the MC12 was based on the engine of the Ferrari Enzo, the engine for the MC20, a 3 litre V6, was developed by Maserati in house.
Sounds like the line used by Detroit Lions fans for years. Next year will be different.
The good. Thing Chevrolet kicks everybodys ass Ferrari hasent won a Lemans in ages so was the big deal peasent Ferrari worshipers u just got a lucky break this time it’s like Ford another ancient dead in there heels😟