Corvette Racing failed to finish the 90th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans after the No. 63 entry suffered a mechanical issue and the No. 64 car was taken out by a wayward LMP2 car.
The No. 63 Corvette C8.R of Antonio Garcia was leading in GTE Pro by a significant 17 seconds at the eight-hour mark when it suffered a strange left rear suspension failure on the Mulsanne Straight, forcing the Spaniard to limp the car back to the pits for lengthy repairs.
💔Heartbreak for the #64 Corvette
It was all getting abit tight down the Mulsanne – with the prototype pushing the LMGTE Pro leaders into the barriers.
Gut wrenching!⏱️https://t.co/4J3q5Z45q3@CorvetteRacing | #LeMans24 | @FIAWEC pic.twitter.com/w9d6KQDsMy
— 24 Hours of Le Mans (@24hoursoflemans) June 12, 2022
With the No. 63 car out of the fight for the lead, the team’s full focus turned to the No. 64 car. British driver Alexander Sims was leading the GTE Pro class by over a minute with roughly six hours remaining when he was hit by the AF Corse-run LMP2 car of amateur driver Francois Perrodo. The Frenchman was in a duel with another LMP2 car and pulled out to pass in the draft not knowing the yellow Corvette of Sims was alongside, bodychecking Sims and sending the car hard into the outside metal barrier.
“This isn’t how we wanted our Le Mans race to end,” Laura Klauser, GM Sports Car Racing Program Manager, said in a prepared statement. “We’re all proud of the dedication of everyone on the Corvette Racing team to give us the absolute best chance for our ninth class victory. At the end of the day, we’re all proud to be part of the One Team effort that is Corvette Racing. We’re glad Alexander is OK and that the C8.R kept him safe. Our focus now is on our two full-season efforts in the WEC and also the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.”
While both Corvettes showed tremendous pace in both qualifying and race trim, the Pratt Miller-run team left Le Mans with nothing to show for it. The FIA World Endurance Championship will also abandon the GTE class at the conclusion of this season in favor of GT3-based machinery, making this the last appearance at Le Mans for the GTE-spec C8.R, which has more downforce than the GT3-spec version that currently races in the IMSA WeatherTech series and also lacks anti-lock brakes, among other differences.
The GTE Pro class was won by the No. 91 Porsche 911 RSR of Gianmaria Bruni, Richard Lietz and Frederic Makowiecki, which capitalized on the bad luck of not only the two Corvettes, but also the No. 92 Porsche 911 RSR sister car. The two AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE entries took up second and third in GTE Pro, with the No. 92 Porsche finishing fourth, two laps down. The Riley Motorsports-run Ferrari 488 GTE was fifth in GTE Pro after lacking pace throughout qualifying and the race and falling three laps behind the class leader.
The overall win in the Hypercar category went to the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa, which crossed the finish line just over two minutes ahead of the No. 7 Toyota sister car.
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Comments
I happened to see how the Corvette #64 was taken out live on TV, and at first it looked to me as if the LMP2 driver was trying deliberately to take the Corvette out. Only in the several repetitions of the scene, I saw 3 cars racing side by side when the right most (in driving direction, left in the camera view) moved slightly to the left, to which the middle car moved left to avoid being touched, and thus hit the #64 Corvette smashing her to the outside metal barriers.
I had not seen this initially because I had my eyes on the Corvette.
That was really too bad, after the two Corvettes had lead the GTEpro field up until this sad ending, and the #64 Corvette was fighting for the 1st place in the GTEpro class. A bitter ending of that day for Chevrolet.
It has to be said that the driver who had kicked out the #64 Corvette, François Perrodo, later went to the Corvette garage and offered his apologies for the unfortunate move he had made.
Apologies are like butt-holes everybody’s got one. Amateur drivers make amateur mistakes.
Perrodo’s apologies were well received in the Corvette garage and TV commentators said that such an apology is rather rare in automobile racing. I too was moved by this gesture.
The LMP2 car should never had made it three wide.
The teams had several issues and the 64 team came back from 7th place to take the lead. The team definitely had the cars to beat.
They were all coming our of the previous curve, or rather corner, if my memort does not cheat me, and were all trying to get ahead of the competition. I don’t remember which car made the threesome full.
That curve was a turn to the right in driving direction.
The offending LMP2 car with an amateur driver was being entirely too aggressive. I never heard the announcers indicate if that LMP2 car was given a penalty for avoidable contact. If not, he should have been. It was classy to offer the apology but that could not begin to make up for the cost of the accident he caused.
Somebody got a 3 minute stop in the pit lane as penalty, and I think it was this driver.
Forgive my ignorance, are the LMP2 cars and the Corvette in the same class, competing with each other ? I thought the Corvette were GTEpro. If true that they were in different classes, don’t the slower cars defer to the faster cars on the track ?
Again, I am not an expert, not well versed in the etiquette.
Thanks
Generally the slower cars move as side unless they are in the act of passing.
In this case a faster Corvette was passing a slower class Ferrari and the LMP2 tried to split them and should have waited.
Thank you for that explanation. As a hobby enthusiast driving on a local track with all sorts of cars, we are careful when passing slower cars, and avoid contact. Of course, we are not professionals.
There is no rule that a “lower” class car has to give way for a car of a “higher” class. That is racing.
The Corvette C8.R is, in fact. equipped with a 6-speed manual gearbox. You could look it up.
So Sad Too Bad!
Heartbreak.
I SAW IT, THE 64 CORVETTE COULD HAVE WON
THE COST OF TAKING 2 TEAMS AND CARS THERE, ALL DOWN THE DRAIN BECAUSE OF 1 DUMB MOVE
See you at next year’s Le Mans with the Cadillac hypercar!
In a TV commercial on CNN (International), Discovery+ shows this moment, which really looks as if the driver of the car in the middle had deliberately tried to kick the Corvette out of the race.
In TV advertisement (on CNN eg) for their sports programmes, Discovery+ showed also this scene.