Sebring ahead of the FIA WEC Prologue on track today for next week's race

The first of Saturday’s (3/12/22) two Prologue track sessions is due to start at 9:35 a.m. ET, lasting three hours.
A second three-hour session is scheduled for 2:50 p.m.
Click Here Timing
for live timing and scoring featuring all 36 cars that are due to take part in next weekend’s 1000 Miles of Sebring.

Corvette Racing was denied a private test at Sebring International Raceway on Feb 16-17 due to the WEC’s rule of “no private or special testing” within 30 days of a championship competition. Feb. 13 was the cut-off day for the test to occur under the regulations.

In an official request, Corvette team manager Marc Maurini argued that the objective of its test would have been to finalize Michelin tire options that would not have been used at the Sebring event and the fact that the Pratt & Miller-run team was unable to move the test earlier due to its participation in the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Additionally, the test date was already confirmed in mid-2021 for tire development “well prior” to confirmation of Corvette’s full-season participation in the WEC.

3 hours of test track time going on now

CORVETTE RACING AT SEBRING: World Championship Chase Begins - Milner, Tandy start FIA WEC title hunt at familiar spot for Corvette Racing

Competing at Sebring International Raceway is nothing unusual for Corvette Racing. Competing there in the FIA World
Endurance Championship, that’s a different story.

Nevertheless, this is the latest chapter for Corvette Racing as it begins its first full season in the FIA WEC. Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy will team
together in the No. 64 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R for all six rounds of the World Championship – starting with the 1,000 Miles of
Sebring in the GTE Pro category for factory race teams.

Ahead of the March 18 are two days of testing at the 3.7-mile, 17-turn Sebring circuit Saturday and Sunday. It’ll be the first time that the No. 64
mid-engine Corvette will run in a primary yellow livery after two years in silver during the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and last year’s 24
Hours of Le Mans.
The No. 64 will run in the same configuration as the last two seasons in IMSA’s GT Le Mans (GTLM) category as well as GTE Pro at Le Mans last August.

Sebring and Corvette have a rich history going back nearly 25 years with more than 51,000 miles worth of racing and at least 10 times that in testing
and development over the last quarter-century. Part of that total came during the 2019 season when Corvette Racing entered one C7.R in the FIA WEC
round at Sebring in a one-off in addition to entries in that year’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

Both Milner and Tandy are no strangers to competition in the FIA WEC, albeit in differing degrees.
This will be Tandy’s third full-season campaign in the WEC with the British ace claiming a pair of victories and four pole positions in 19 starts.

Milner has two starts in the FIA WEC outside the 24 Hours of Le Mans:
2014 at Circuit of the Americas and 2018 at the Six Hours of Shanghai, each in a Corvette C7.R.

To prepare for its World Championship challenge, Corvette Racing has a full-time crew and engineering team that is dedicated to the full season,
all of whom have logged significant time with Corvette Racing in IMSA and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The lessons learned and data gained at Sebring and the next WEC round at Spa-Francorchamps will go a long way toward Corvette Racing’s return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June.

The 1,000 Miles of Sebring for the FIA World Endurance Championship is scheduled for noon ET on Friday, March 18 from Sebring International
Raceway. Qualifying is set for 7 p.m. ET on Thursday, March 17.

TOMMY MILNER, NO. 64 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R:

“I’m really excited about our full-season run in the WEC. Something about each event is exciting.
They’re all new tracks for me outside of Sebring and Le Mans. I’ve raced in Europe and Japan before, but not the tracks on our calendar.
So starting that off at Sebring is a cool throw-back to how it used to be for us in the American Le Mans Series.
Once we get to Sebring, I’m sure it will feel different. It will be a different path for us.
For personally, I’m excited to do this and race in a new championship on some new racetracks.
It’s a great chance to show off the mid-engine Corvette to fans all around the world.”


NICK TANDY, NO. 64 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R:

“In our usual season, Sebring is our second event, which is kind of normal. But for the WEC, it’s the start of our season. We plan to take the whole Prologue event
as a testing event, but this is the start of the WEC season. Sebring is a bit like Daytona.
You look at it, and it feels familiar with how the structure of your season is playing out. Everything beyond that is different.
There is something exciting about doing something different like this.
One of the things I’m really looking forward to in seeing how it’s going to work, we’ll have our entire Corvette Racing family together, racing in two events
separately for the first time. I’m really glad that the first time we split off as single-car entries, we’re actually all going to be there together.

That’s very cool. It’s not a situation where what we do with one car will necessarily help the other, but at the same time we’ll have multiple sets of
eyes on two sets of situations that are happening on the same track throughout the weekend.
Corvettes will be on track a lot over the two days.
Hopefully that will be a benefit; I can’t think of a way it’s a determent.
It is interesting to start our full-season begins at Sebring again and not Daytona.
It’s for a very good reason: the fact that we’re doing something new and different in going for a World Championship, and the good thing is that it starts in North America.”

After first 3-hour practice session

After several days of glorious sunshine in which the FIA WEC teams set up the paddock and prepared for the opening round of the season, the skies darkened during the first track session of the Prologue.

With rain lashing the circuit and reports of incoming lightning, the decision was taken to pause the session, and the decision subsequently followed not to resume before the afternoon.

The Prologue will continue throughout March 12-13 as the teams and drivers make their preparations for the opening round of the WEC's tenth anniversary season, the 1000 Miles of Sebring, being held on March 18.

Second 3-hour practice session completed

Porsche placed first and second on the second consecutive Prologue outing as Kevin Estre reeled off a 1:56.494 in the German manufacturer’s No. 92 car to lead.

Estre was the only GTE driver in the 1-minute 56s range, as Gianmaria Bruni took second on a 1:57.009 at the wheel of the No. 91 Porsche.

The sole Chevrolet Corvette C8.R went second-quickest, two-hundredths shy of splitting the 911s, while the best Ferrari 488 GTE Evo was the No. 51 car on a 1:57.643.

Two more sessions tomorrow, Sunday

First of two practice sessions completed

4th and last practice session completed

C8.R has been improving their lab time each session for next weekend 1,000 mile Sebring race

Corvette Racing paced the GTE-Pro category courtesy of Nick Tandy’s 1:56.476 aboard the No. 64 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R.

Porsche 911 RSR-19s topped the first three sessions, but Tandy managed to get ahead of both cars from the German manufacturer.

Gianmaria Bruni was second in the No. 91 Porsche, 0.031 seconds shy of the Corvette, while Michael Christensen took third in the No. 92.

C8.R Corvette Racing’s Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy completed two days of solid, trouble-free testing over the weekend ahead of Friday’s 1,000 Miles of Sebring and the start of the 2022 FIA World Endurance Championship.

During the course of the 12 hours of testing, the No. 64 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R ran for 12 hours and tallied 245 laps / 906.5 miles around the 3.7-mile/17-turn layout at Sebring International Raceway. The two Corvette drivers posted the third- and fourth-fastest times among all GTE Pro runners over the two days Milner’s best lap was a 1:56.409 (115.637 mph) Sunday morning, just ahead of Tandy’s 1:56.476 (115.575 mph) effort later in the day.

Evaluations of the Michelin tires for Sebring and the 2022 season Corvette Racing’s first full campaign in the WEC along with continual operational practice and strategies were the order of business for the weekend.
The latter is especially key as there are notable differences in pit stop and race procedures for the WEC compared to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, in which Corvette Racing will also compete in Saturday’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring with a separate Corvette C8.R for the GTD PRO class.

Opening practice for the 1,000 Miles of Sebring is scheduled for 11:05 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
The 1,000 Miles of Sebring for the FIA World Endurance Championship is scheduled for noon ET on Friday. Qualifying is set for 7 p.m. ET on Thursday, March 17. The race will air live on MotorTrend with live-streaming coverage of the race and qualifying on the MotorTrend app. Radio Le Mans will broadcast the race, qualifying and all practice sessions.

TOMMY MILNER, NO. 64 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R:

“All things considered, these were two very good days. We didn’t really have any issues, which was great. It was a good chance to understand the tires that we will use in the WEC throughout the season. It was an important two days not just for Sebring but also looking toward Spa, Le Mans, and beyond.
It’s great to have a good baseline, and we’ll learn as we go. We’re all generally pretty happy about the amount of information we got over the two days. So it was a very successful test.

“When you have essentially the work of running in two championships, there is a chance for some things to be overlooked or missed. But we had none of that… no issues that prevented any running, which was important for us to learn as much as we can to prepare for this race at Sebring and beyond.”

NICK TANDY, NO. 64 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R:

“It was a worthwhile couple of days for us. Even though we’ve run this car at Sebring a lot, it’s kind of the first time we’ve run it here in WEC configuration.
We have different tires, different power levels, different weight levels than what we run in IMSA spec.

Even though the car and track are very familiar to Corvette Racing, we had a lot to get through. The good thing is that a mix of conditions it was quite warm Saturday and Sunday was very cool in the morning with quite a change in track temperature it gave us some good work on getting an idea of tire windows and the like.
We’re all very pleased with how the test. We got through a lot of the work we wanted to. It sets us up nicely for the race week.”

GTE Pro’s last hurrah

GTE Pro enters its final season with the addition of Corvette Racing to the full-season ranks.

Going in to 2022, there’s no shortage of racing needle after the controversial end to the ’21 GTE Pro season in Bahrain that saw Ferrari claim the world championship after late-race contact between the winning 488 GTE and its Porsche title rival.

With a galaxy of GT racing stars aboard, the all-pro grid has always provided astonishingly close racing, and 2022 is set for more of the same, with the established order to be challenged to the very end by long-time 24 Hours of Le Mans contender Corvette, which now joins in for the full season with a single C8.R for the rapid pairing of Nick Tandy and Tommy Milner.

The American ’Vette will be on home ground at Sebring, but both Ferrari and Porsche have two cars in the fight, so place your bets and watch all the action unfold.