Magnussen and Garcia score victory at Laguna
Magnussen and Garcia score victory at Laguna
Jan Magnussen holds the record for the most consecutive seasons of scoring victories in ALMS competition. Sadly, that streak was broken last year after a string of misfortunes.
However, the Danish star and his Spanish teammate Antonio Garcia made amends today at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca by dominating the race to take the No.3 Corvette to victory lane.
“I have to say, today was one of the most perfect races we’ve had with Corvette racing,” Magnussen said.
“We were under pressure the whole way. We never had a big lead, we really had to work through traffic and not get stopped by the slower cars and lose too much time. It was a matter of being precise the whole race.
“The pit crew made perfect stops. We didn’t have any issues in the pits. We did the driver change during only a short fuel, so there wasn’t a lot of time to make it.
“I am so happy we finally get a win over a year and a half. With this one, if you can’t win driving like this, you can’t win. It is a lot of pressure, but we have a great crew behind us the whole time.”
Magnussen and Garcia triumphed over the Falken Porsche of Bryan Sellars and Wolf Henzler who maintained strong pressure on the Corvette after Magnussen made a move for the lead around the outside of the corkscrew on lap 27.
Garcia scored his first GT victory for the team since becoming a full-time member of the Corvette Racing squad. He previously took a win for Corvette as a third driver in the old GT1 ‘Vette in 2009.
“It’s been a really good year and a half with Corvette Racing. I think last year we did like 5 second places, so we really deserved a win or two,” Garcia said.
“I thought today, with as perfect as we’ve been driving, if we don’t get this win, I don’t know what else to do. Everything worked, right where it needed to be. Those Michelins were pretty good, they were what we needed.
“I knew I had to make the gaps on the end. I was saving the tires a lot, but had to get the gap. It was really a last minute thing. The car was perfect, we really deserved this win.
“It took me maybe 10-15 laps to get 2 or 3 seconds to the second car after the previous restart. And then the yellow came, so I was thinking the whole end about the last yellow. I was just saving as much as I could knowing I had to be fast enough on the restart. So instead of pushing hard on clear laps, I focused on getting the gap through traffic, that is really where you make a win.”
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