Team ZR-1 Corvette Racers LLC

IMSA Laguna Seca Sept 10th Weekend

Posted By: teamzr1

IMSA Laguna Seca Sept 10th Weekend - 09/07/21 03:53 PM

After a strong showing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Corvette Racing is back in the U.S. and returns to its quest of a second straight GT Le Mans (GTLM) title as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship starts its West Coast swing this weekend.

Picturesque WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, Calif., is the site of the Hyundai Monterey Sports Car Championship and the second race at the circuit for the mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette C8.R.
Sunday’s race is the seventh of 10 points-paying events for Corvette Racing, which is coming off second- and sixth-place finishes in the GTE Pro class at Le Mans.

Laguna Seca has been a fixture on Corvette Racing’s calendar since the program’s first year of competition.
It’s one of two tracks at which the team will have competed in each of its 23 years to date. The other is Sebring, and Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta will be the third, with the season-ending Petit Le Mans.

The Corvette C8.R raced at Laguna Seca during its 2020 debut season, with Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor finishing second. The result was enough to clinch the GTLM Drivers championship and the Team title for the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette C8.R. Chevrolet went on to claim the Manufacturer's title.

Garcia and Taylor return to Monterey again leading the GTLM points standings on the back of four wins, including the season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona.

No. 3 Corvette C8.R teammates Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor will participate in a Zoom Q&A for media at 12:30 p.m. ET today (Sept. 7).
They also were second at Le Mans in the first race there for the C8.R. Garcia has three wins at Laguna Seca and Taylor two.

Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy, teaming in the No. 4 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette, look to close the gap on their teammates in the GTLM standings.
They teamed for a victory at Detroit and the Rolex 24 qualifying race, and added runner-up finishes at Daytona, the Watkins Glen sprint round and Lime Rock Park.
Milner, a past Laguna Seca winner, has set the fastest GTLM race lap the last two years in Monterey while Tandy was third in GTLM a year ago.

Corvette Racing will contest the Hyundai Monterey SportsCar Championship on Sept. 10-12 from WeatherTech Laguna Seca in Monterey, Calif. Live television coverage will air at 4 p.m. ET on Sept. 10 with live-streaming coverage on TrackPass and NBC Sports Gold.
Live audio coverage from IMSA Radio will be available on IMSA.com, Sirius 219, XM 202 and SiriusXM Online 992.

ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R:

“As we have seen everywhere we’ve gone, the C8.R has been an upgrade in every single aspect compared to C7. I could feel that also at Laguna Seca last year. I felt like we were more competitive there than over past years.
This year will be different again because we have a year’s worth of development. I’m looking forward to getting back there.
I like the area, I like the track and everything about the event. Maybe we can give the C8.R its first victory there.”

JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R:

“Laguna Seca is such a unique track and is always a tricky one to get right. The surface is very slippery, which usually leads to pretty high tire degradation throughout the race. Last year was obviously great. Going there and clinching the championship.
This year we have the same goal, going there to execute as well as we can all weekend.
We’re in a good spot in the championship, but we’re going there to win the race.”

TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R:

“Laguna Seca is definitely one of the most challenging tracks we go to. It’s not just about its layout, but also the track surface and weather conditions.
It’s a place that seems like all the tire data that we learn all throughout the year doesn’t apply for whatever reason. Furthermore, it’s a tricky one for sure for that reason with very low grip and traffic.
I feel like we are always used to high-grip surfaces and then going there, it’s quite a bit different with high degradation. Having been there already once with the C8.R, we’ll have some knowledge and data to go off of.”

NICK TANDY, NO. 4 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R:

“I’m very keen for a victory at Laguna Seca. For one, Tommy and I have been so close to winning races.
We just need one or two things to go our way on the No. 4 Corvette side. Second, Laguna Seca is one of the few tracks in IMSA where I haven’t won a race.
It would be nice to check off both those boxes and end the season strong.
It’s never easy at this track and will require a lot of work and study to get us in optimum shape going into the race. If we can keep controlling the things we can at Laguna Seca then I think we will have an excellent weekend.”

2021 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship – GTLM

(After Six of 10 Events)
Driver Standings
1. Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 2,207
2. Tommy Milner/Nick Tandy – 1,993
3. Cooper MacNeil – 1,984
4. Matt Campbell – 1,372
5. Augusto Farfus/Jesse Krohn/John Edwards – 1001
Team Standings
1. No. 3 Corvette Racing – 2,207
2. No. 4 Corvette Racing – 1,993
3. No. 79 WeatherTech Racing – 1,984
4. No. 24 BMW Team RLL – 1,001
5. No. 25 BMW Team RLL – 966
Manufacturer Standings
1. Chevrolet – 2,230
2. Porsche – 2,108
3. BMW – 1,052
4. Ferrari – 330
Posted By: teamzr1

Re: IMSA Laguna Seca Sept 10th Weekend - 09/08/21 04:16 PM

Corvette Racing drivers Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor, teammates in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R and points leaders in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, met with members of the media during a Zoom conference call Tuesday ahead of this weekend’s race at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna.

ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R

YOU’VE WON THREE TIMES IN YOUR CAREER AT LAGUNA SECA. IS THERE SOMETHING ABOUT THE TRACK THAT SPEAKS TO YOU?
IS IT LUCK, OR IS THERE SOMETHING ELSE?

“I wouldn’t say it was luck. You never know at Laguna. There are always a lot of different strategies in play. It’s usually a two- or three-stop race. Lately it has been more of a three-stop one. With those, you always need to fight those gambling with two stops.

We’ve won a few races there but we also lost a few with cars and people who we didn’t expect to get to the end, and they ended up managing to make the strategy work. There is a fine line. Tire degradation is the main thing. As soon as there is a yellow, everything starts again and you better have a good tire.
Otherwise you are going to be end up being very vulnerable.
Let’s see what this weekend goes. Hopefully we are on the good strategy.”

WHAT HAVE BEEN THINGS LIKE FOR YOU SINCE THE LAST IMSA RACE AT ROAD AMERICA?

“It’s been very busy.
Right after Road America, we had two or three days off, and then we were off again to Le Mans. Being European, I was a little luckier than the American guys so I could stay here (in Spain) until the Friday morning before the Test Day.
So that saved me a couple of days. Le Mans was very tiring as always. Last week I was at the simulator with Jordan, so the work is still on. You need to keep focusing. There was a ton of data to analyze and some correlation to be done after Le Mans.
You better have all the information you can after a big race like that. I spent a few days there and then came back here for some family time. Time flies by when you are with your kids, for sure.”

HOW RELIABLE HAS THE CHEVROLET SIMULATOR BEEN FOR YOU ON THE CORVETTE SIDE WHEN THE CAR GETS ON THE TRACK?

“A lot. The C8.R is the answer for that. We’ve been working on the simulator with the C8.R for two to three years in advance before it was on the track for the first time. That helped a lot.
It’s true that you need to trust all the data you are getting from the wind tunnel and all your simulations. Our simulator seems to be very good on correlation. We also have Michelin helping us develop a very, very good tire model, which is one of the most important things we need to have.

So it has worked very well for us on the C8.R. Every time we had a bad race, even though there was no time to go on track – we had time to recover and fix things that didn’t work. Most of the time, the car is excellent out of the box at the track.
You end up doing a few tweaks and very small setup changes. It’s been very, very good.”

JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R

WHAT ABOUT WEATHERTECH RACEWAY LAGUNA SECA MAKES IT SPECIAL TO A LOT OF PEOPLE?

“To us, it’s a classic sports car track in North America. It’s known around the world for the Corkscrew but anyone who goes there for our weekend in particular who is a hard-core sports car fan knows it because of the history of the sport. There’s a lot of history there.

A lot of famous guys raced really cool cars back in the day in sports cars. I was able to go there a couple of years for one of the Reunions and drive an old Corvette around the track. You definitely feel a lot of history when you go there. It’s a cool part of the country lots of great restaurants in the area, you’ve got the town of Monterey.

The track itself is built into the hillside there. We enjoy it.
The track is challenging. It’s more slippery than you’d expect. It degrades the tire pretty quickly, so it makes the whole weekend pretty tricky to understand what the car needs to be competitive. You can have one car for qualifying that will be fast, but you need a completely different animal for the race itself.
There always seems to be some sort of compromise, but that’s what makes it enjoyable is to have that challenge.”

WHEN YOU EXPLAIN TO PEOPLE THE SUBJECT OF ADHESION AND GRIP AND THEN HAVING NONE AT LAGUNA,
HOW DO YOU GET THAT TO RELATE TO PEOPLE WHO DON’T DRIVE?

“That’s a tricky question to explain.
When you go to a place like Watkins Glen or Road Atlanta, the grip level is high so to find the threshold and limit of the car and the tire, you need to push the car a lot and trust that the grip will be there. When you go Laguna Seca, I wouldn’t say it’s like driving on ice, it’s not that slippery, but the limit comes so fast. You find the limit of the tire, the grip and the car extremely quickly.

You’re driving almost like a knife-edge.
You try to stay under the grip of the tire and not trying to slide it. The grip level is so low that it’s easy to go past it. I’d say a way to explain it is that you’re very on edge the whole time to stay below that limit and hurt the tire and lap time.

If you can save that from the beginning of a stint, it will be pay huge dividends at the end of it.”

HOW DOES THAT CHANGE YOUR AGGRESSION LEVEL, EITHER WHEN YOU’RE PUSHING ANOTHER DRIVER OR PUSHING AGAINST YOURSELF?

“It’s really tricky. It takes some experience and maturity not to get caught up in things, especially in GTLM. Our stint length is really long. I came from being in prototypes where our stints were getting shorter and shorter to like 35- or 40-minute stints. At that point, with tire degradation, you can still push pretty hard and maybe you’ll suffer for the last 10 minutes.

In GTLM, our stints can be close to an hour in length, so you can suffer for 30 minutes.
The amount of patience you have to have with the way you are driving, attacking and fighting people and to get through traffic you have to be a lot more careful and mindful of what you’re doing.
Every time you slip the tire a little bit, you kind of remind yourself that maybe you went a little too hard there.
You have to reset and think more about the bigger picture.”

WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT THE C8.R AT LAGUNA LAST YEAR THAT CAN BE HELPFUL THIS YEAR?

“The biggest thing when we go there is understanding how the tire works and tire compound. I think last year we split strategies between the 3 and 4 car because we have such limited track time. You don’t have much time to test and understand what you need to do in the race itself.

Splitting the strategies last year should help us this year to understand where the strengths and weaknesses were between those two strategies and tire options. It’s another thing we were working on last week in the simulator to understand where we want to be and understand the different temperature ranges on the track this week.
We learned a lot Last year was the first time the car was on a very low-grip surface. It’s unique in that fashion, and we learned some important lessons last year.”

YOU WERE ON THE DALE JR. DOWNLOAD LAST WEEK. TALK ABOUT THAT EXPERIENCE.

“It was a lot of fun. Doing the Dale Sr. helmet was special, and taking that to Le Mans this year was a big deal.
Dale and I have spoken a bit over the years and texted sporadically, and with him coming to cover the Rolex 24 the last couple of years we formed a small relationship to bounce things off each other.
I’d tried to get on the podcast for the last couple of years, but timing-wise things never lined up. Now with the Dale Sr. helmet and I was up there last week with Antonio for the simulator, schedules lined up pretty well, and it was an awesome experience.

I never spent a lot of time with Dale Jr., but it was really cool to talk to him, even if it was just sharing stories and hear some of his stories with his dad reminiscing of their experience at the Rolex 24 and some unique stories from that event were pretty funny.
To see the personal side of him and getting to know him as a person, I think we realized we are pretty similar guys we’re pretty shy and reserved but in certain situations and with certain people, we are pretty comfortable and can open up a lot.

I definitely had a good time. It was really cool to see the fan response and the support from everyone.
I think it opened a lot of eyes from the NASCAR world to the IMSA world, so I think it’s good to have that cross-over.
It would be good to have those types of events.”
Posted By: teamzr1

Re: IMSA Laguna Seca Sept 10th Weekend - 09/11/21 03:37 AM

Acura picked up where it left off again at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. Coming off consecutive wins and Motul Pole Awards in each of the past two IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship races at the historic circuit, the manufacturer set the pace Friday in opening practice for the Hyundai Monterey Sports Car Championship.

Filipe Albuquerque pushed the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 DPi around the demanding 2.238-mile road course in 1 minute, 14.880 seconds (107.595 mph) to head the 26-car field in the one-hour session. The time was 0.155 seconds quicker than the track qualifying record set by Albuquerque’s teammate, Ricky Taylor, in 2019.

Taylor won last year’s WeatherTech Raceway event with Helio Castroneves, on their way to capturing the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) championship with Acura Team Penske. Taylor and Albuquerque moved to Wayne Taylor Racing this season and have the No. 10 Acura atop the DPi standings.

Pipo Derani, who along with Felipe Nasr in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R have closed to within 41 points of the No. 10 Acura, was second in practice with a lap of 1:14.974 also under the official track record. Derani and Nasr have won each of the past two DPi races.

Other class leaders on Friday were:
Mikkel Jensen (No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07) in Le Mans Prototype 2, at 1:16.115 (0.702 seconds under the LMP2 qualifying standard);
Nick Tandy (No. 4 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R) in GT Le Mans, at 1:22.081; and Bill Auberlen (No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M6 GT3) in GT Daytona, at 1:24.630.

A second WeatherTech Championship practice begins at 11:45 a.m. ET Saturday. Qualifying to set the starting grid streams live on IMSA.com/TVLive beginning at 4 p.m. The two-hour, 40-minute race airs live at 4 p.m. Sunday on NBCSN, TrackPass on NBC Sports Gold, the NBC Sports App and IMSA Radio.

IMSA has updated its sporting regulations to reflect the definition of a manufacturer, which now states that the OEM must not only be recognized as an “IMSA Official Automotive Partner” but also have an “annual production of 2,500 or more vehicles for public consumption and public road use” in order to be eligible in the WeatherTech Championship. (reason for how the production C8 Z06 is being designed)

BMW is among five manufacturers that have committed to LMDh projects for WeatherTech Championship competition, along with Acura, Audi, Cadillac and Porsche. Dallara, one of four constructors eligible to produce LMDh chassis, also will supply the chassis for the Cadillac LMDh project.
Posted By: teamzr1

Re: IMSA Laguna Seca Sept 10th Weekend - 09/11/21 05:17 PM

After two practice sessions


Description: Session Two
Attached picture p2.jpg
Posted By: teamzr1

Re: IMSA Laguna Seca Sept 10th Weekend - 09/11/21 08:37 PM

How GTLM qualified and where they will start the race Sunday

Jordan Taylor, scored his 4th consecutive pole in GT Le Mans, taking Corvette Racing to a 1-2 run in class.

Taylor’s 1:21.151 lap time edged out teammate Tommy Milner by 0.116 seconds.

The No. 79 Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Cooper MacNeil got within eight-tenths of Taylor’s pole time.


Description: GTLM Start Positions
Attached picture gtlmq.jpg
Posted By: teamzr1

Re: IMSA Laguna Seca Sept 10th Weekend - 09/11/21 11:07 PM

Corvette Racing’s Jordan Taylor captured the GT Le Mans (GTLM) pole position Saturday for the Hyundai Sports Car Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

Taylor claimed his second straight pole in Monterey and a track record with the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R that he shares with Antonio Garcia. The two were runners-up in last year’s race and claimed the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GTLM title.

Taylor set a lap of 1:21.151 (99.281 mph) to best teammate Tommy Milner by just 0.116 seconds.

Corvette Racing will contest the Hyundai Monterey SportsCar Championship on Sept. 10-12 from WeatherTech Laguna Seca in Monterey, Calif. Live television coverage will air at 4 p.m. ET on Sept. 10 with live streaming coverage on TrackPass and NBC Sports Gold. Live audio coverage from IMSA Radio will be available on IMSA.com, Sirius 219, XM 202 and SiriusXM Online 992.

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

“In practice we were on our own program in working on race setup, and we had some ideas on what would work for qualifying, as well.
The name of the game here is getting points for the championship, so the main focus is the race. In qualifying you do get a couple of points, so we had a couple of changes in mind for this. Thankfully they worked for qualifying, but for the race we’ll have a completely different racecar in itself. We have the right direction and the right guys at Corvette Racing working on it. It should be a good race tomorrow.

“It was a good session. Through the practices, we weren’t the quickest car, but we had some changes in mind we wanted to make for both qualifying and the race because this is such a unique track.
We put the changes in for qualifying, and I’d say it was an improvement for one-lap pace. When we go to the race, we’ll have a different car and setup to make sure it’s good for the long run. We’re in good shape. It’s great to get another pole position for Corvette Racing. It’s our 23rd year here, so it’s nice to keep that tradition.”
Corvette Racing News

CORVETTE RACING AT LAGUNA SECA: Jordan Taylor Pole Quote September 11, 2021
Corvette Update with the Corvette Team September 10, 2021
CORVETTE RACING AT LAGUNA SECA: California Dreaming September 7, 2021
Posted By: teamzr1

Re: IMSA Laguna Seca Sept 10th Weekend - 09/12/21 11:06 PM

C8.R Corvette Claims First Laguna Win Since 2014

GTLM saw the No. 4 Chevy Corvette C8.R pairing of Nick Tandy & Tommy Milner break through for a long-awaited class win & the team’s first victory at Laguna Seca in more than seven years.

Nice pit work put Tandy out front of the No. 3 Corvette of Antonio Garcia in the final round of stops,
despite the Englishman locking up the brakes at the pit exit & briefly going off-course.

It marked the No. 4 Corvette’s first points-paying class win since Sebring in July 2020 & was Tandy’s first official victory with the Pratt & Miller-run squad.

Tandy & Milner collected class honors in the Detroit round earlier this year in what was an exhibition race for the team.

The No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Cooper MacNeil and Matt Campbell,
which won last time out at Road America, did not factor into Sunday’s race.


Description: Finish Line
Attached picture finish.jpg

Description: C8.Rs
Attached picture 34c8r.jpg
Posted By: teamzr1

Re: IMSA Laguna Seca Sept 10th Weekend - 09/13/21 12:18 AM

MONTEREY, Calif. (Sept. 12, 2021) – Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy won for Corvette Racing in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) category of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship on Sunday, the first victory for the No. 4 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R since Detroit in June.

It also marked Corvette Racing’s first victory at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca since 2014.
Sunday’s race marked 23 consecutive years of the program competing at the famed circuit near the Monterey Peninsula.

Milner drove the first 58 minutes of the two-hour, 40-minute race before handing over to Tandy, who drove a double-stint to the end.
He finished a lap clear of the GTLM championship leaders Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette.
Each car in the category made two stops due to a two-hour, 26-minute, green-flag run to the finish.

TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – GTLM RACE WINNER:

“It’s awesome finally!
We finally get a points win for the No. 4 Corvette. We’ve been close so many times and just had problems.
To finally get it is awesome. Nick did an awesome job there at the end. He didn’t have A/C for a bit, but he did a great job soldiering through. We’ve been close and had great racecars all year long.
Just little things here and there caused us to just miss out. It feels good to finally get that monkey off our back and use this momentum going forward.”

NICK TANDY, NO. 4 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – GTLM RACE WINNER:

“The Corvette was fantastic. It’s finally great to finally get a points-paying win.
We’ve run so well at so many places, it was frustrating not to get the final result. To finish it off here and stand on the top step to get big points is a great feeling.”
Posted By: teamzr1

Re: IMSA Laguna Seca Sept 10th Weekend - 09/13/21 02:42 PM

C8.R Corvette Racing’s Tommy Milner & Nick Tandy took a hard-earned victory in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GT Le Mans (GTLM) category Sunday with their second win of the season in the No. 4 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R.

The duo scored a one-lap victory, their first full-points win of the year at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca for Corvette Racing’s first triumph there since 2014. It came as the program marked 23 consecutive years of racing on the Monterey Peninsula.

GTLM Drivers Championship leaders Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor placed second in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette as the pair of mid-engine C8.Rs combined to lead every lap Sunday.

Milner and Tandy won a non-points race earlier this year at Detroit, and the No. 4 Corvette also won a 100-minute qualifying race ahead of the Rolex 24 At Daytona in January. Sunday was a break-through for the pairing in scoring maximum race points.

Milner started second in class and drove the first 58 minutes of the two-hour, 40-minute race before handing over to Tandy, who drove a double-stint to the end. He finished a lap clear of the sister Corvette as each car in the category made two stops due to a two-hour, 26-minute, green-flag run to the finish.

Taylor led for the entirety of his stint to open things in the No. 3 Corvette, which was the first of the C8.Rs to stop at the 51-minute mark. He handed off to Garcia, equipped with a full tank of fuel and fresh Michelin tires. Milner followed suit a couple of laps later, and Tandy set off in hot pursuit of the No. 3 C8.R.

He and Garcia engaged in a spirited battle, with the two exchanging fastest GTLM race laps multiple times. Tandy, who set a GTLM track record at 1:21.827 (98.461 mph), got alongside his teammate at one point and inherited the lead for good when Garcia made his final stop with 49 minutes left.

The No. 4 Corvette came in a lap later and came out just ahead of Garcia, despite a trip through the gravel along Laguna Seca’s winding pit lane exit. Undeterred, Tandy slowly but steadily built a gap over Garcia to the end of the race.

Corvette Racing returns to action at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on Saturday, Sept. 25.

TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R GTLM RACE WINNER:

“For us on the 4 car side, it feels like we have a monkey off our back a little with getting a full race win.
We’ve had really fast Corvettes all year long, even last year with Olly (Gavin). For one reason or another, we couldn’t put it together problems here and there, driver mistakes, problems on the pit stops, whatever it was.
We’d have fast race cars, but one little thing would trip us up. When you’re racing against guys like our teammates Jordan and Antonio those guys are obviously on their game. Credit to those guys.
They’ve done a phenomenal job for the last year-and-a-half and perfect pretty much all the time. It feels great today to get that win. We had a little issue with the car that felt like déjà vu as usual with something going wrong. Fortunately, it didn’t put an end to our race, and we were able to finish it out on top.”

WHAT WAS THE ISSUE WITH THE CAR? DID YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAD THE MEASURE OVER THE 3 CORVETTE?

“It looked good at the start. The car felt excellent, the balance was great and pace was good.
We had talked about splitting strategies between the two cars. Whoever was out front would do a three-stop and whoever was next would do a two-stop. I was just saving tires and fuel as best I could and wait for the opportunity for the 3 car to pit, then use everything left in fuel and tires before we stopped and hopefully have an advantage.
The yellow kind of put an end to multiple strategies there. Still, saving tires helped me quite a bit in the first stint. Because the car was as good as it was, we were able to save tires… we weren’t driving it absolutely for every last little bit possible and killing the tires. This track is so tough on tires that you have to be nice to them to have good ones at the end.

“The problem we had, maybe I’m making a bigger deal out of it than it actually was because in the end it didn’t affect our race. It was an alternator issue. It was still functioning, but it wasn’t functioning as well as it should.
There was some concern for a little bit, and it was a little hot in there for a little while. But in the end, everything was OK, and the team was happy with the state it was in.
When you hear that radio transmission, your first thought, especially for us was here we go again. That wasn’t the case today.

“The Corvette was fantastic. The balance lately has been good. Here again today it was superb.
It was great to finally show a result for all the hard work that all the crew guys have put in for so long. They deserve a lot of credit.

They’re here first at the track and leave last. Those guys want to win just as much as we do. It’s frustrating for them to have little issues and not get a result.
So I’m happy for Nick and myself, but most of all I’m happy for the crew guys on the 4 Corvette who have soldiered through quite a bit over the last year or two with these new cars and getting the result they deserve.”

NICK TANDY, NO. 4 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R GTLM RACE WINNER:

“I’ll echo a lot of what Tommy said. My first year with Corvette Racing has been such a kind of mixed set of emotions.
The car is great. It’s great working with this team in a superb atmosphere with guys that know exactly what they are doing.

We were just kind of missing that final result. We had the win at Detroit, which I’ll always count as a bona fide win, but we haven’t had a points-paying win.
It was getting a little bit long in the tooth. Going to all these races, running well and up front, we just weren’t winning races, it was similar the last time out at Le Mans. It’s great to get that slate wiped and know that we still have three more races this year.

We’ve got momentum. The car was fantastic all weekend. It gives me hope and looks good for the rest of the season. It’s been such an emotional roller-coaster. A lot of the time, you think you put the work in, and you just see the result just in front of you, but it just doesn’t get there. To finally get there and stand on the top step with my buddy, it feels good. We want to do it three more this year.”

THE LAST PIT STOP:

“When you’re racing guys like Jordan and Antonio in the 3 Corvette, you’ve got to be on your game, and you can’t afford to give away any time.
The problem is that the previous stint I exited the pit and braked way too early (before returning to the track) and thought I’d given up too much time. Knowing it was going to be close to where we were going to come out on the last stop, I braked a little later, not by much! But she didn’t want to stop.
The front wheel locked and took a little trip across the gravel. I managed to get back into the pit exit before blending on the track.
There was no real harm done. We gave up a little bit of time, but we still managed to stay in front.”

ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R SECOND IN GTLM:

“It was good for a 1-2 finish for Corvette and that we could cover the Porsche on any possible strategy. Having such a clean race with just one yellow made things a tiny bit easier. Today it went our way.
Another Corvette 1-2 even if it was another super-tight battle with our teammates. Those are always fun to have. As I’ve said many times, there is no worse adversary than your teammates because they have the same tools

Whatever advantage you have they have it too, and whatever weakness you have they have the same. This time the win went to Tommy and Nick. They were just a tiny bit better than us, but I’m happy we showed well and had a nice, clean race between the two Corvettes. I gave everything I had, for sure. I didn’t have anything else.”

JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R SECOND IN GTLM:

“It’s a little disappointing not to get the win. At the same time, it was a good day for Corvette Racing with another 1-2 finish.
It was nice for the 4 car guys to get the monkey off their backs. We had a good Corvette.
From the pole, leading most of the race and with the pit stop cycle and strategy, we just missed it a little bit.

In these races, you can’t make any little mistakes. Once the yellow came out at the beginning, it kind of put everyone on a three-stop strategy. There were some options for a three-stop, but you needed it to be green the whole race for that to work.

Once the yellow came out at the beginning, everyone was locked in to the same strategy.
But it wasn’t a bad day for the championship, so we can look forward to Long Beach and focus on that one.”
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