Corvette win the first 36 hours of 2015
Corvette win the first 36 hours of 2015
They triumphed in the Rolex 24 at Daytona and now Jan Magnussen, Antonio Garcia and Ryan Briscoe have backed that up with victory in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.
After qualifying third, Garcia moved up to second early and the team stayed in contention throughout the entire day. A quick spin by Briscoe was their only delay as they cycled through the driver line-up
With 80 minutes to go, Garcia was back in the car and had slipped to fourth place with the two factory Porsches and Giancarlo Fisichella up ahead. By this stage the Spaniard was in fuel conservation mode.
Fisichella pitted to hand over to Pierre Kaffer and then drama struck both the Porsches. Firstly the Porsche crew could not get the left rear wheel off the No.912 car at the pitstop – eventually forcing it behind the wall for a new upright.
Then the No.911 leader of Nick Tandy suffered gearbox issues and dropped out of contention. Corvette had been confident of success knowing their rivals had to make an extra stop but the problems put the victory beyond doubt.
“Its brilliant. We’ve won the first 36 hours of the championship,” Garcia said.
“It was a very very hard race. From the first lap to the last lap it was a massive fight with the Porsches, Ferraris. We had stints out there that were like qualifying.
“It was a very consistent race, mostly fuel and tires every time. With the yellow with two hours to go, we called it a fuel race. From then on I was trying to stretch as much as possible.
“Even if the Porsche didn’t have its problems we were in good shape because we knew they had to pit again.”
The victory has put the Corvette squad into a handy lead in both the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship and the Patrón North American Endurance Cup.
“No, it never gets old winning. It was a fantastic day for the team. Antonio and Ryan did a great job on the track staying out of trouble,” Magnussen said.
“With two hours to go, I didn’t really think we would have been able to win. But once it became a fuel race, it was really a good battle. If we had a yellow at the end, it probably would have messed us up.
“This is a fantastic start to the year. It will set the team up with a lot of confidence. We’ll go in very strong mentally. Long Beach has been traditionally strong for Corvette racing. Hopefully we can carry on with that and on to Le Mans for the big one.”
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