Garcia, Tandy among GTE Pro leaders in first official practice, qualifying sessions
LE MANS, France (June 8, 2022) – Both Corvette Racing entries advanced Wednesday to the Hyperpole final qualifying session for the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the pair of mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette C8.Rs continuing their strong showing from Sunday’s Test Day.
Antonio Garcia, driving the No. 63 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R, was the second-fastest driver in an ultra-competitive GTE Pro category with a lap of 3:51.132 (131.855 mph). A three-time Le Mans winner, Garcia was only 0.133 seconds off the class-leading pace of Laurens Vanthoor.
Nick Tandy wasn’t far behind in the No. 64 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette. His best lap of 3:51.491 (131.669 mph) put him comfortably inside the top-six, as the six fastest cars in each class from Wednesday qualifying advance to Thursday’s 30-minute Hyperpole session.
Wednesday’s five hours of practice saw all six Corvette Racing drivers cycle through the C8.Rs. Aside from a brief heavy shower during the qualifying session and a couple of slow zones in the two-hour night session, neither of the Corvettes lost significant running time due to technical or mechanical issues.
Corvette Racing will contest the 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 11-12 with the green flag set for 4 p.m. CET and 10 a.m. ET. MotorTrend TV will air the race live with the MotorTrend App adding coverage of official practices and qualifying Thursday. Live audio coverage will be available from Radio Le Mans starting with Wednesday’s first official practice session.
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 63 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – SECOND IN GTE PRO QUALIFYING: “It was a good day and so far the car is good. We had a clean run in free practice to validate a few things we had in mind and putting things together from the Test Day. You always get a little nervous with this new qualifying format because in an hour, anything can happen. We saw that last year when I got caught with a ton of red flags and slow zones. I knew we had the speed but you had to put down a lap or two, to be sure. We did it and did it early enough with the unexpected rain. I couldn’t believe that after I went out for my second run that the team told it was raining hard. Even at Pit-In, there were zero drops. It was another Le Mans qualifying, and tomorrow is the real one. The important thing was to run as much as we could tonight and again tomorrow. We have five more hours of free practice left. Let’s see if we can improve things even more.”
NICK TANDY, NO. 64 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – FOURTH IN GTE PRO QUALIFYING: “Raceweek is always a little bit different from the Test Day. That’s always the first day when the public roads are opened up to us and the rubber from the tires start going down. We’re pleased to see that the car is still in really good shape from the test. We’re continuing to work through and figuring out what tire compounds we want to be running at certain times. So far, the practice is going well. In qualifying, the key aim of course was to get both cars into the Hyperpole. We managed to get some idea of what we need to do to gain a bit more performance for Hyperpole. From our side, it’s been a pleasing day. Everything that we have worked on has made sense with what we hoped would happen with the car. Hopefully the rest of the week will go as smoothly as today.”
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