Corvette Racing sweat its way through the Northeast Grand Prix on Saturday to fifth- and sixth-place finish in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Hoping to replicate one of its finest moments – the 100th victory in program history – the pair of Chevrolet Corvette C7.Rs came short in scoring victory No. 100 in IMSA competition. The pair of velocity yellow Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvettes finished where they began on a sweltering July afternoon.
Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen led the Corvette charge in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette C7.R and remained third in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) Drivers Championship with the result. Oliver Gavin and Marcel Fässler were right behind in the No. 4 SiriusXM/Mobil 1 Corvette as the team now heads to Road America in two weeks.
The team elected to split their pit strategies at the halfway point of the race. Garcia and Gavin started the race with each driving a single stint before handing over to Magnussen and Fässler, respectively, near the 40-minute mark. The No. 4 Corvette stopped 40 minutes later and committed to a three-stop strategy that saw Fässler drive a double-stint and run as high as second before handing back over to Gavin for the final 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, Magnussen drove 55 minutes in his stint and switched back to Garcia for the final 63 minutes. The No. 3 Corvette managed to pick up three spots in the final run to salvage a top-five finish on much more worn tires.
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R – FINISHED FIFTH IN GTLM: “Another tough day for us. The heat didn’t help with our attempt to make the tires last over a full fuel run. The strategies were all over the place and maybe we could have made a difference by going in a different direction. I don’t know but this is something we will look at for more hot races. It’s not been the best couple of races for Jan and I, and tough for our championship.”
JAN MAGNUSSEN, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R – FINISHED FIFTH IN GTLM: “For sure this is one of the hardest races I’ve done. Obviously it was super-hard trying to get the tires to last a full stint. There were a few different strategies going on today. I don’t know if we were on the correct one. Whatever the case, we didn’t make it work for us. This was a tough weekend and another not-so-great weekend for the championship. We’ll figure it out come Road America.”
OLIVER GAVIN, NO. 4 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R – FINISHED SIXTH IN GTLM: “A number of things played out today. Strategy was one of them. The heat was another and trying work those together was tough. Tire degradation was a big thing for everyone. Trying to plan that and how you were going to manage that was a big deal. The first part of the race when I was out there with Antonio, we were circulating and just trying to save tires and work… see where everyone else was. We then decided to go a direction with the strategy, and that didn’t quite work. I think we had good pace in the race at times, but ultimately there were some things that didn’t play our way or work out for us. It’s been a tough couple of races for Corvette Racing. But we had a good sixth-place finish today, so hopefully we’re building back some momentum and are going to a track that is historically good for us at Road America. A great job by the guys today in really brutal conditions and really digging deep.”
MARCEL FÄSSLER, NO. 4 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R – FINISHED SIXTH IN GTLM: “In my first stint, it was quite tough. There was a lot of tire degradation early on, which was not that easy to overcome. I was quite careful to save the rear tires somewhat. We went to a three-stop strategy, and the change we made for my second stint was pretty good. It made the car very good to drive. The tires still dropped off toward the end but that’s a crucial thing here at this track. Unfortunately, my drinks tube came off and I didn’t have any drink during all my time in the car. In the end, we tried everything we could to make better. I liked the Corvette very much. We’re not missing a lot but just a little bit. The team did a good job with strategy and the pits. All in all, it was good to be back at Corvette Racing. I enjoyed the track and being back with the team.”
Source. Corvette Racing
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