Corvette take 100th victory

July 23, 2016

Corvette take 100th victory

July 23, 2016

michelin_corvette_social_07

Corvette Racing recorded its 100th race victory today with Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner leading a C7-R 1-2 finish at Lime Rock Park.

The No.4 Corvette crossed the line less than a second ahead of the No.3 Corvette of Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia to also record Corvette Racing’s 60th 1-2 result.

michelin_corvette_social_01The victory today also was the 75th scored with Michelin as the team’s tire partner.

After qualifying third fastest, Gavin and Milner completed a trouble free race, pushing through the pack to eventually take the lead with 30 minutes to go with Giancarlo Fisichella ran wide at Lime Rock Park’s “Big Bend” corner.

Magnussen and Garcia had also been in fightback mode, climbing back through the pack after having to do a drive through penalty after the first stop when a tire from the No.3 rolled out into the outside lane in the pits.

The result extended Gavin and Milner’s championship lead in the GTLM class to 10 points over the Ford duo Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook who finished third.

This is the second race in a row where Corvette Racing has had both cars on the podium. The No.4 and No.3 cars finished second and third at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

The recent run of success has also pushed Magnussen and Garcia up to third place in the championship standings.

“This was a great day today for this team,” Milner said.

“I’m honored to be a part of it. I just feel fortunate to a part of this program and be a part of the 100th win. There was some talk about it after Sebring, but it was pretty quiet about it around our camp.

michelin_corvette_social_02“But the monkey kept getting bigger and bigger, so I’m happy to get the monkey off our back.”

The two hour, 40 minute race was disrupted six times with full course yellow periods. Both BMW and Porsche had days they would prefer to forget with both BMW’s damaged after contact, one Porsche in the wall and a second two laps down after suffering a fuel-related technical issue.

For the winning Corvette squad however, Gavin and Milner were able to keep their nose clean en route to victory lane.

“Racing here at Lime Rock is always tough with all the traffic. And fortunately it seemed like there was just enough separation between the three classes in certain spots to really allow some passing to happen,” Milner said.

“While for sure, I was frustrated at some points, and others were frustrated as well, we all seemed to manage to make it through.

“There were a couple of guys racing super hard. I knew the race was going to get that way. I tried to keep my nose as clean as possible most of the way but there were spots that I couldn’t.

“Fortunately enough for us it worked out for us in the end. Track seemed the same pretty much the whole race. The cloud cover, when it came over, I could notice it got a bit better.”

 

//results.imsa.com/Results/16_2016/13_Lime%20Rock/01_IMSA%20WeatherTech%20SportsCar%20Championship/201607231505_Race/03_Results.PDF

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