Ten years ago this week Corvette Racing entered international sports car competition as a Michelin technical partner for the first time.

It didn’t take long to measure the results; the Corvette team broke the class track lap record 21 times in the first 28 laps of the Sebring race. Corvette Racing program manager Doug Fehan describes the switch to Michelin as the biggest change in the history of the team.

It has actually proven to be a winner for both sides. On the track, Corvette Racing’s first ten seasons with Michelin yielded seven wins here at Sebring, beginning with that first race here in 2004 and including the stirring, come-from-behind victory in 2013 by Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Richard Westbrook.

In total, the first ten years of the Corvette – Michelin technical partnership produced 60 wins in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS), along with seven sets of ALMS manufacturer, team, and driver championships and five class victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Yet, for all the victories, the biggest win for both may be away from the track. There, the close collaboration developed through motorsports has resulted in Michelin being chosen as the exclusive tire partner on the new seventh–generation Corvette Stingray and Corvette Z06.

Taking the lessons and insights from the track, the Michelin engineers embedded with Corvette Racing actually led the tire development team on highly innovative new tires for all versions of the new C7 Corvette. “You can’t have a tighter feedback loop than that,” said Fehan.