Two Corvette Racing Z06 GT3.R race cars did well at Imola on April 20th, 2024, earning invaluable championship points as the season enters its summer swing.
TF Sport was the only organization to have its cars finish inside the top 10, with the No. 81 Corvette of Charlie Eastwood, Tom Van Rompuy and Rui Andrade taking home a seventh-place finish and the No. 81 Corvette of Daniel Juncadella, Hiro Koizumi and Sebastien Baud earning eighth.
The race was slowed under yellow seven times but the melee allowed Van Rompuy to pick up four spots in the first two laps. Shortly thereafter, the threat of rain prompted both Corvette Racing teams to pit for wet-weather tires. Thankfully, this decision didn’t set them back much in terms of grip, and they were able to swap back to racing slicks for the last hour of the race, although the wet track made passing difficult as the clock ticked down.
“It was a very interesting race. Weather played a massive role in it,” Eastwood said. “The TF guys did a great job in making the right calls. The track has such high grip that even when the guys were on slicks, they were still able to generate a lot of grip and temperature when we were on the wets. It balanced out basically the same although I probably had a nicer experience than they did.”
Meanwhile, Baud, who recovered from a minor spin, said, “It was a crazy race… Toward the end, we had a lot of rain in the last two corners but the first sector was dry. I had a little spin in the safety car queue but did not lose anything. But still it is not a mistake a good driver should make. I will continue to work with my engineer and my teammates to continue improving for the next race.”
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Comment
#81 and #82 raced in Italy in the Wec race and the #13 raced in Long Beach, none of them placed very well. Reporter doesn’t have his facts straight