An angry Corvette racer Tommy Milner says the allegedly “dirty” tactics used by a BMW driver during the Daytona 24 Hours this weekend aren’t “what racing is all about.”
With less than three hours to go, the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R was leading the GTD Pro class when Milner says Paul Miller BMW’s Augusto Farfus – who was several laps back began using aggressive blocking tactics ahead of him to give his teammate Connor De Phillippi, who was in second, a chance to make up ground.
Farfus did wind up with a drive-through penalty for the blocking, but his tactics also forced Milner to make a costly mistake.
The Corvette driver suffered body damage to the left side of his bumper cover when it clipped doors with De Phillippi as the BMW tried to go around him.
As Farfus was heading to the pits for his penalty, an irate Milner gave him the middle finger as he passed by.
Farfus was the least of Milner’s worries, though, as his pit crew didn’t have enough time to tape up the loose bodywork on the Corvette. Milner returned to the race now in second place, but then had to endure a mechanical black flag and a return to the pits after the repair failed on the track.
“It is team racing here, but not like that,” Milner said in an interview with IMSA Radio. You got a car that’s laps down, out of the race, whose only job is basically help a teammate and not like that lap after lap after lap, blocking, blocking, blocking and waiting for me.
“Like I said, it’s not how sports car racing should be. It’s disappointing. I don’t have an issue with the number one car [De Phillippi] those guys are in their own race. It’s just the sister car that is out there just to be a nuisance. It’s poor sportsmanship, poor driving. Just embarrassing on their part.”
Milner furthermore accused Farfus of twice timing his pit stops so that he would come out just in front of Milner, adding that the BMW team “should be embarrassed for that kind of racing.”
“Their only goal is to race dirty,” he said. “Again, it’s just disappointing. It’s not how this kind of race should go.”
In the end, the No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports lineup wound up winning GTD Pro with Christopher Mies, Frederic Vervisch and Dennis Olsen sharing the driving. Olsen closed out the win by nearly two seconds.
Alex Sims in the No. 3 Corvette finished second, while the No. 64 Ford Mustang GT3, driven by Mike Rockenfeller, Seb Priaulx, and Austin Cindric, completed the podium.
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