Corvette Racing finished runner-up to Pfaff Motorsports in Sunday’s Chevrolet Grand Prix from Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, securing an important points haul towards its GTD Pro class title bid in the process.
Antonio Garcia described the two-hour, 20-minute race around the daunting 1.8-mile circuit as “perfect,” from an execution standpoint, with the No. 3 Corvette C8.R simply lacking the pace to catch and pass Pfaff’s No. 9 Porsche 911 GT3 R, which led the majority of the event.
“We finished second, and that’s all we had,” Garcia said post-race. “We pushed the winning car, but it wasn’t enough. Next race, we’ll try to go a little faster and do something different. This is what it also takes to win championships. So we need to stay in contact, and I’m sure the wins will come.”
Jordan Taylor started the race from fourth in GTD, moving up a spot as one of the frontrunners spun off at Turn 1 and keeping pace with the two leaders for the duration of his one-hour, 40-minute stint. The American then pitted for fresh fuel and tires and to hand driving duties over to Garcia, with the Spaniard driving the remaining 40 minutes to close out the race. Garcia said he may have been able to close up to the Porsche if it weren’t for two late-race caution periods, although the Pfaff team was also managing its pace throughout the closing laps.
“I think it felt like the Porsche was showing what they had to show,” Garcia said. “Whenever we would stop saving fuel or tires, it felt like they had some in reserve. We thought that without those two yellows and a more consistent stint, maybe we would have had a chance. Up until the last yellow I was saving the tires, but on the last yellow, we knew it would be a race to the end. We both went 100 percent.”
IMSA heads to Lime Rock next for the Northeast Grand Prix. Click here to view full results from Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
Subscribe to GM Authority for more mid-engine Corvette news, Corvette C8 news, Corvette news, Chevy news, Corvette Racing news and around-the-clock GM news coverage.
Comments
No matter. My Corvette is still my freind.
Not pleased at all with the BOP (Balance of Performance) that IMSA levies against the Corvette Team. Corvette hasn’t won since 2014 at the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, how is that a balanced field.
Is this where they added 200 or 400 lbs to the passenger side of the Corvette ?
This to make the rest of the field have a chance at winning.
And if so …. If you can’t compete don’t race.
As usual, IMSA’s “claimed” BOP or Balance of Performance always favors the Euro imports and especially Porsche who spends megaEuros to keep it that way. Nothing new, just the usual screw-the-Americans job from IMSA. Not whining, not sore loser….simple factoid that Corvette Racing knows they cannot mention….in public.
Actually they have not raced there since 2014 and never ran the C8 there. Second place really is a good result for a first time race with a radically altered car to fit the GT3 pro class it was never intended for.
The truth is corvette has benefited from the BOP much as they have been hurt by it.
In fact Corvette at Le Mans this year held the advantage and crashes and poor tires killed them in the race. Several times they dropped to 7th and made their way to the front easily,
GM easily spends as much as Porsche and more than Ferrari with their factory team. It is no low budget deal.
You may say you are not whining or a sore loser but the fact is you are being dishonest or terribly miss informed.
BOP is something that goes around and at sone point it hurts some teams and later helps them.
I would complain but I have been to races and seen seasons the Corvette was not the best car and the help saved their season. Other years I have seen it hurt. What goes around goes around comes around.
IMSA has a challenge to keep all the cars competitive yet keep cost down and not lose mfgs. This is not easy and if they did not balance the cars or lower costs no one would race and leave. It has happened before.