Garcia, Taylor move into second in points after fourth-place finish in GT-only fight
LAKEVILLE, Conn. (July 22, 2023) – Luck and track position went against Corvette Racing on Saturday at Lime Rock Park as Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor drove to a fourth-place finish in the FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix presented by Liqui Moly.
The day wasn’t a complete loss, though, as the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette finished high enough to move into second place in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GT Daytona (GTD) PRO points standings with four events to go.
Saturday’s race was the first of two GT-only races on the schedule this year, and the packed hillsides of fans watched a fantastic show around the 1.474-mile, seven-turn bullring as the top four cars were separated by just 1.138 seconds at the end.
The first 90 minutes or so were full of differing pit strategy among the GTD PRO entries. Garcia maintained his third-place position from the start and led when he made his first stop at half-hour mark, rejoining third but second among the cars on a three-stop strategy.
A full-course yellow only minutes later jumbled up the strategy again with Garcia and the No. 14 Lexus stopping for fuel and left-side tires while the race-winning Aston Martin stayed out. Even with fresher tires, the difficulty for Garcia in third and the second-place Lexus to get around the Aston Martin was evident during a long green-flag run in the middle of the race. That meant a period of fuel-save to try and gain track position on the final pit stop.
Garcia brought the Corvette to the pitlane for the last time with 72 minutes left from third place. The swap to Taylor looked routine until the Corvette stalled leaving the pitbox, and Taylor lost nearly 10 seconds as the car wouldn’t go back into gear.
That cycled the Corvette back to fourth for the final run to the finish. A full-course yellow with a little more than an hour bunched up the field, but Taylor was unable to make in-roads on the tight and twisty Lime Rock circuit during the final 47 minutes.
Corvette Racing’s next event is the IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America on August 4-6.
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – FINISHED FOURTH IN GTD PRO: “A very frustrating race. It felt like it was impossible to pass anybody on track, and it was all about track position. It’s a shame we didn’t have a better starting position in qualifying, but that was kind of a key thing this year. We never had the ultimate pace to be upfront in qualifying, especially. I thought being P3 would’ve been enough just to have race pace, but everybody kind of had pretty much the same thing. Here, it seemed impossible to pass with what we had. On top of that, we had to play the strategy, and I think we probably had the Lexus covered because I was saving quite a bit of fuel behind them. I think it was the right call to pit behind them, but then the car had an issue (on the driver change). I don’t really know what happened there, but we lost six, seven, or eight seconds and we lost position even to the Porsche. So just frustrating. As we knew, Jordan (Taylor) did 70 laps behind them, and there’s nothing you can do. We didn’t seem to have anything extra to pass them. We need to look back and see what we can do different.”
JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – FINISHED FOURTH IN GTD PRO: “It was a pretty frustrating day. We didn’t have the fastest car, but with the way the strategy was looking, it looked like we were going to be able to jump a bunch of guys on that last stop and then something went wrong on the stop itself. I couldn’t get it back in gear, and we were sitting there for an extra 10 seconds. Once you lose all that track position, it’s impossible to pass around here. Even if we had a stronger car, you’re just sitting behind guys. We were just waiting for someone to make a mistake or something like that to cruise by. But that wasn’t the case. Everyone kind of drove around in a line, and that was it.”
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