C8.R Corvette Racing’s Jordan Taylor qualified on pole position in the GT Daytona (GTD) PRO class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship on Friday as the team looks for its ninth victory at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Taylor posted a best lap of 1:18.048 (90.774 mph) on his final lap around the 1.968-mile, 11-turn street course in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R that he will share with Antonio Garcia. The pairing are coming off a big win in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring three weeks ago with Nicky Catsburg. The pole was the first for the team in the new GTD PRO category and Taylor’s second in a row at Long Beach following a GT Le Mans (GTLM) pole last season.

Unusually hot temperatures Friday didn’t do any of the competitors any favors looking ahead to Saturday’s 100-minute race (5 p.m. ET on the USA Network/IMSA Radio).

A projected drop of 15-20 degrees in the air temperature for Saturday means much of the data gathered won’t apply to the 100-minute race.
Having said that, there were considerable lessons learned, specifically in the ABS braking package on the GTD PRO Corvette, one of the key differences between the current class and the GTLM version of the C8.R.

Suspension setup and compliance over some bumpier parts of the racing surface also were focal points Friday, with some of those observations collected from the Sebring race and a subsequent test after the 12 Hours.

The combination of moving to GTD PRO plus a 100-minute race placed even more importance on qualifying than normal. With such a short race, there likely will be just one planned pit stop for fuel and change of tires and driver. With all 20 GTD cars having roughly the same performance levels, track position will be at a premium throughout.

The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach is scheduled for 5:05 p.m. ET/2:05 p.m. PT on Saturday. The race will air live on USA and stream on Peacock starting at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT. IMSA Radio will air the race at IMSA.com along with XM 207 and SiriusXM Online 992.

JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – GTD PRO POLE WINNER:

“We definitely put a lot of emphasis on qualifying around here because it’s so difficult to pass. Adding ABS makes it tougher. Practice One didn’t go that well. In Practice Two, we made some changes to get closer to the front of the field. Qualifying was super-tight. I thought my first 1:18.1 was quite a good lap and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to beat it.
I was disappointed to hear on the radio that we were six-hundredths off. I kept trying and slowing down and trying and slowing down.
I made a couple of mistakes in turns nine and 10 on my second-to-last laps, and then I got turns 10 and 11 right to make all the difference. It was tight.
With points in qualifying, it was another reason to qualify well. It’s a good day for Corvette Racing.”

CHANGES TO THE TRACK BETWEEN TURNS SIX AND EIGHT:

“I don’t know what it is. It looks like a sealant or something. In the first session, on the first 10 laps, the track was the fastest it was in that practice because that started peeling up. It looked like marbles at first but I think it was the track surface. It made it a little tricker and made it like a one-line run. If you ventured out, it was difficult. That will be something tomorrow as well when traffic comes through more for the prototypes, or if we get pushed out into that it could be an issue.

“I think at Turn Six and Turn Eight, it seems like the walls are more rounded. I remember Six in the past had a sharper edge at the apex that would poke out a little bit. I don’t know if that was the change, but that seems better.”

DIFFERENCE IN APPROACHING THE RACE AS A ONE-CAR TEAM:

“I wouldn’t say we have dropped down (in class). The field is just as competitive (as GTLM) and it’s nice to have more cars to race against. It does make it more difficult having one car in the team. We showed up today for Practice One with a setup we thought was going to work. Usually we would come out with two setups to start that session.
Our setup for Practice One wasn’t ideal, so we spent the whole session chasing it and guessing for Practice Two, where in the past we’d have a second car to rely on. So we just lose half the time in development throughout the weekend.
The way the team uses our simulator and all the tools we have, we can develop a setup close enough and rely on the history we have in the team and understand what the car is going to do from session to session, especially at a track like this that changes so much.”

STAYING OUT IN QUALIFYING WHEN OTHER TEAMS STOPPED:

“I didn’t have that much confidence that I was going to go faster, but I thought it was worth trying.
The fuel load and the weight of the fuel burning off is a big part of it that the driver doesn’t necessarily feel that much from lap to lap, but it shows up in laptime. I knew that was going to be one aspect.
The balance also was changing, and I knew that if I kept pushing throughout the run, the balance would shift more to oversteer and that’s what I needed more rotation. I definitely was sliding around a lot more than I was at the beginning of the session, so I didn’t know if that was going to be a positive or negative.
I figured hopefully with the weight loss of the fuel and the balance shifting would be just enough to get another lap in, and thankfully enough it was.”

FIRST POLE IN GTD PRO AFTER A SLOW START TO THE SEASON:

“Daytona wasn’t ideal. Sebring obviously went well. That was a big turning point from a car setup point of view and understanding what the car needed to work on this tire. The tire has been the biggest thing for us to understand and understanding ABS.
Sebring was big for us, and it has some similarities to Long Beach, so I think that’s why we can rely on our Sebring history here to know what the car setup is going to do. Once we get to Watkins Glen or Road America, there could be some new things to learn.”

HOW MUCH OF A PREMIUM DID THE TEAM PLACE ON QUALIFYING?

“It is so difficult to pass here. ABS makes it that much tougher. If other guys are 1-2 seconds off, they can probably hold you off by attacking brake zones and holding on that way. We definitely put a premium on track position and qualifying.
The race is a big question mark with how many red flags we had in practice and if we are going to have yellows and cautions and are guys going to take that risk to pit early. One positive is that we do have a 35-minute driving minimum, so guys just can’t jump out five or 10 minutes in.
Track position is going to be key.
Thankfully, we got the pole, and hopefully we can stay out in front and control things.”

CORVETTE RACING AT LONG BEACH: By the Numbers

• 1: As in one team, one manufacturer and one model of car for 14 years at Long Beach: Corvette Racing, Chevrolet and the Chevrolet Corvette.
• 3: Generations of Corvette Racing entries at Long Beach since 2007 –Corvette C6.R (2007-13) and Corvette C7.R (2014-2019) and Corvette C8.R (2021). All three generations have won at least once at Long Beach.
• 4: Number of Long Beach race victories for Corvette Racing’s duo of Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor.
• 8: Number of drivers who have competed at Long Beach for Corvette Racing – Olivier Beretta, Antonio Garcia, Oliver Gavin, Jan Magnussen, Tommy Milner, Johnny O’Connell, Nick Tandy and Jordan Taylor. Each driver has won at least once at Long Beach.
• 8: Number of Long Beach victories in 13 appearances for Corvette Racing – more than any other IMSA entrant at the circuit.
• 10: Number of Long Beach sports car victories for Chevrolet. Throw in 11 IndyCar wins, and Chevrolet has claimed 21 victories in the event’s two premier races.
• 14: Manufacturer Championships for Chevrolet and Corvette Racing since 2001.
• 19: Number of street circuit victories for Corvette Racing – more than any other IMSA entrant at the circuit.
• 25: Tracks at which Corvette Racing has won races – Baltimore, Charlotte Motor Speedway, COTA, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park/Mosport, Daytona, Detroit, Houston, Laguna Seca, Le Mans, Lime Rock, Long Beach, Miami, Mid-Ohio, Portland, Road America, Road Atlanta, Sebring, Sonoma, St. Petersburg, Texas, Trois Rivieres, Utah, VIR, Washington DC and Watkins Glen.
• 30: Number of wins in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for Corvette Racing since the start of 2014.
• 121: Victories worldwide for Corvette Racing – 113 in North America and eight at Le Mans.
• 253: Event starts by Corvette Racing since 1999.
• 3,945.82: Number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing in its 12 previous trips to Long Beach. That represents 2,005 laps around the 1.968-mile street circuit.
• 339,411.24: Total number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing since its inception. To put that in perspective, Corvette Racing is more than halfway to the distance traveled by Apollo 13 – the longest manned spaceflight in history: 622,268 miles. That means Corvette Racing has raced to the moon… and then some!

Replay of qualify last night

Jordan Taylor was always in the hunt for the GT Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) Motul Pole Award on Friday at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
He just waited until the last possible instant to clinch it.

Through the first 10 minutes of the 15-minute IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship qualifying session, Taylor’s No. 3 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD traded fast times with Connor De Phillippi’s No. 25 BMW Team RLL BMW M4 GT3 and the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche GT3 R of Mathieu Jaminet. All were within a tenth of a second of De Phillippi’s hot lap of 1 minute, 18.115 seconds. Figuring there was no more left in the BMW, De Phillippi pitted with under three minutes left in the session. Jaminet followed suit a minute later.

Undeterred, Taylor kept after it and hustled around the 11-turn, 1.968-mile street circuit in 1:18.048 to grab the pole just after the checkered flag waved.

“We definitely put a lot of emphasis on qualifying,” Taylor said.
“It’s so difficult to pass here, and especially with ABS (anti-lock braking system used by both GTD PRO and GT Daytona cars), it’s that much tougher, so track position is very important.
The times were really tight. I thought my first lap (1:18.173) was quite good, so I was a little disappointed when Connor beat it.

“I didn’t know that I could go quicker, but I thought I’d give it a try.
I knew the fuel load would burn off. As a driver, you can’t always feel that, but the car gets quicker.
The balance also changed the more laps I did, it shifted to more oversteer, which is what I needed.”

De Phillippi finished second in qualifying, but the No. 25 BMW’s fastest laps were nullified for violating the maximum engine speed permitted by GTD Technical Regulations. That moved Jaminet to second on the class grid, with Ross Gunn slotting into third in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3.

The pole was the first for Corvette Racing in the new GTD PRO class, though Taylor did take qualifying honors last year at Long Beach in the No. 3 Corvette in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class that preceded GTD PRO.
Taylor and co-driver Antonio Garcia (along with endurance driver Nicky Catsburg) are coming off a class win last month in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts.

“Daytona was a bit disappointing,” Taylor said. “But we got a better understanding of the tires and ABS at Sebring. Sebring is similar to Long Beach with all the bumps, and I think some of what we learned at Sebring carried over to Long Beach.
As the season goes on, and we go to places like Watkins Glen and Road America, I’m sure there will be lots more to learn. But we’re making progress.”

With 1/3rd of the race completed, the C8.R leads by 4 1/2 seconds

End of race

C8.R was leading more than half the race but screwed up !

Heart of Racing Wins After Corvette Penalty

The Heart of Racing’s Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas came out on top in GTD Pro, benefitting from a drive-through penalty for the No. 3 Chevy Corvette C8.R

Riberas held off Jack Hawksworth in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 for Aston Martin’s first win in the new-for-2022 class.

The pole-sitting Corvette of Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia finished third in class after one of its wheel nuts fell out of its pit box and punctured the radiator of the
No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R, which had been running second at the time.

Being a street race, passing is pretty hard and C8.R just could not make the time back up

C8.R Corvette Racing’s Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor left the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on Saturday with a third-place class finish and the championship lead after three rounds of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Garcia and Taylor recovered from a mid-race, drive-through penalty in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R for a second consecutive podium finish in the GT Daytona (GTD) PRO class.
The pairing parlayed the result into an early-season points lead in the category’s Manufacturer, Driver and Team standings heading to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in three weeks.

Taylor began from pole position after a sterling qualifying effort Friday. One of the biggest early keys to the race occurred at the drop of the green.
Taylor perfectly timed his jump at the start and protected his lead down the long front stretch and into the heavy braking zone into Turn One. From that point, he slowly and methodically opened a margin due to the strategic fuel and tire management.

Taylor made the No. 3 Corvette’s one and only pit stop with 61 minutes left.
Garcia took over after what appeared to be a perfect tire change and refuel by the Corvette Racing crew, carrying on the good work from the victory at Sebring last month.

Unfortunately, the team had to serve a drive-through penalty for losing control of a portion of its pit equipment.
Garcia fell back to fourth in class and a lap down, but the race’s first full-course caution only minutes later (for part of the track curbing coming up) allowed Garcia to gain back his lap and move back into podium position.

A pair of full-course cautions inside the final 30 minutes stymied any hope Garcia and the Corvette team had to move back into the lead.

Corvette Racing’s next event is the Hyundai Monterey SportsCar Championship from Laguna Seca in Monterey, Calif., on May 1.

ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – FINISHED THIRD IN GTD PRO:

“Knowing that you had the pace and everything ran really smooth, I think we should have won.
But I do agree that it was fair that we had a drive-through. It’s a bit of a shame. We worked very hard.
We know we are strong over a lap, but to race the other GTD cars is very tough. The way every car achieves a lap time is completely opposite to us.

That makes it very difficult in order to gain back positions, especially here. Maybe if we had a full 30 minutes of green after the penalty, who knows what would have happened. We will take the result, but it’s a shame for sure. That’s another one to add to my list of ways to not win at this race!”

JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – FINISHED THIRD IN GTD PRO:

“All things considered, it was a pretty good save for a point's day.
Unfortunately because we had such a strong car and I think we had a winning car, it’s tough to swallow to not maximize the points.
As a whole, we had a decent lead at the beginning of the penalty didn’t destroy our race as much as it could have.

It was such a fluke of an accident. It’s unfortunate that it happened in the race.
We’ll leave here with the championship lead, which is great.
We’ll go to Laguna Seca with more that we’ve learned this weekend and build on that.”

Jordan Taylor says the dislodged right-front wheel nut from the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD that became a projectile into the radiator of Pfaff Motorsports’ Porsche 911 GT3 R was a “fluke of an accident” that ultimately cost Corvette Racing a likely second consecutive victory in GTD Pro.

The freak pit lane incident resulted in a drive-through penalty issued to the Corvette for “losing control of equipment” during its stop and relegated Taylor and co-driver Antonio Garcia to a third place class finish in Saturday’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.