Second in GTD PRO points, No. 3 C8.R wants more starting in Elkhart Lake
DETROIT (Aug. 1, 2023) – It’s getting close to crunch time for Corvette Racing in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. And there’s no better place for the perennial powerhouse team to accelerate its title push than historic Road America.
The 4.048-mile, 14-turn road course is the site of the upcoming IMSA SportsCar Weekend, which culminates Sunday with the eighth round of this year’s GT Daytona (GTD) PRO championship. The Corvette Racing duo of Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor are hoping for a return to its winning ways in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R.
The pairing won last month in class at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park – the first victory of 2023. A second win this season would go along nicely with a 2020 triumph at Road America in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class. With only four races to go, victories are what will help the Garcia/Taylor tandem and the No. 3 C8.R team most in the hunt for the GTD PRO title.
Although they finished fourth two weeks ago at Lime Rock Park, the result was enough to move into second in class championship standings – 151 points from the leaders with 1,500 points still available with four races left. However, pole positions and race wins are the most immediate goals for Garcia and Taylor with points taking care of themselves after that.
To get back on the top step of the class podium, Corvette Racing will need to come to grips – literally – with a recently repaved Road America surface. In years past, Road America was notorious for eating up tires with high levels of degradation. That very likely won’t be the case this year with substantially more grip available to the field of 46 cars.
Road America and the Corvette brand have a lengthy history dating back nearly 60 years. Chevrolet routinely used the track to test and validate the performance of early-generation Corvettes with that tradition continuing into the present day. Road America was the site of the first on-track running of the Corvette C8.R in 2018, and the mid-engine Corvette continues to write new chapters at each event.
The IMSA SportsCar Weekend race at Road America is scheduled for 10:10 a.m. ET on Sunday, August 6. The race will air live on USA beginning at 11 a.m. ET and stream live on Peacock inside the United States and IMSA.com outside the U.S. IMSA Radio will air all on-track sessions beginning with Friday morning’s practice at IMSA.com with the race call also on XM 207 and SiriusXM Online 992.
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “We don’t really know what to expect at Road America. It’s a kind of track where you can run a completely different configuration that is completely opposite than the rest. So maybe there’s more room to play with setup in order to go completely against everyone else. At most other IMSA tracks, everybody is kind of running the same full-downforce, full-everything. At Road America, there’s a little bit more play. I don’t know how the new surface will affect things. Tire degradation used to be very big there, but I anticipate the tire deg to not be as big as such a big thing there this year. Let’s see. We are definitely knocking on the door every single race.”
JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “Road America is great and has given me a lot of good memories. One of my first wins with the C8.R was there in a downpour late in the race. It wasn’t necessarily our strongest track last year, so hopefully with the new repave we can make some gains on everyone else. We’ve done some simulation work to perfect what we can do on our side to get as much performance out of the car as possible. From this point, it’s all about going for race wins.”
2023 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship – GTD PRO (After seven of 11 events)
Driver Standings
- Ben Barnicoat/Jack Hawksworth – 2,462
- Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 2,311
- Daniel Juncadella/Jules Gounon – 2,302
- Klaus Bachler/Patrick Pilet – 2,281
- Alex Riberas/Ross Gunn – 2,083
Team Standings
- No. 14 Vasser Sullivan – 2,462
- No. 3 Corvette Racing – 2,311
- No. 79 WeatherTech Racing – 2,302
- No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports – 2,281
- No. 23 Heart of Racing Team – 2,083
Manufacturer Standings
- Lexus – 2,462
- Chevrolet – 2,311
- Mercedes-AMG – 2,302
- Porsche – 2,281
- Aston Martin – 2,094
CORVETTE RACING AT ROAD AMERICA: By the Numbers
- 1: As in one team, one manufacturer and one model of car for 25 years of racing: Corvette Racing, Chevrolet and the Chevrolet Corvette
- 4: Generations of Corvette Racing entries at Road America since 2002 – Corvette C5-R (2002-2004), Corvette C6.R (2005-13), Corvette C7.R (2016-19) and Corvette C8.R (2020-current). This year’s race is the second at the track for the GTD-spec, mid-engine racing Corvette
- 4: Number of cars Tommy Milner passed in the final 15 minutes of the 2016 Road America race. He and Oliver Gavin went on to win in class and capture the GTLM Drivers Championship
- 8: Number of victories at Road America for Corvette Racing, the most of any entrant in IMSA
- 8: Pole positions at Road America for Corvette Racing by four different drivers
- 10: Number of drivers who have won races at Road America for Corvette Racing – Gavin (four); Olivier Beretta (three); Johnny O’Connell (two); and Kelly Collins, Ron Fellows, Antonio Garcia, Jan Magnussen, Milner, Andy Pilgrim and Jordan Taylor (one each)
- 12: Fastest race laps for Corvette Racing drivers at Road America. That includes the last three of the last four seasons: Tommy Milner (2019 and 2021) and Antonio Garcia (2020)
- 14: Manufacturer Championships for Chevrolet and Corvette Racing since 2001
- 14: Number of IMSA victories at Road America for Chevrolet, the second-most of any manufacturer in IMSA
- 22: Number of Road America events for Corvette Racing counting this year’s IMSA race
- 27: Tracks at which Corvette Racing has won races – Baltimore, Charlotte Motor Speedway, COTA, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park/Mosport, Daytona, Detroit, Houston, Laguna Seca, Le Mans, Lime Rock, Long Beach, Miami, Mid-Ohio, Monza, Portimão, Portland, Road America, Road Atlanta, Sebring, Sonoma, St. Petersburg, Texas, Trois Rivieres, Utah, VIR, Washington DC and Watkins Glen
- 34: Number of drivers for Corvette Racing since 1999. Ben Keating and Nico Varrone joined that list with their participation – and victory – in the 1,000 Miles of Sebring for the World Endurance Championship
- 126: Victories worldwide for Corvette Racing – 113 in North America, eight at Le Mans and one in the FIA WEC
- 278: Event starts by Corvette Racing since 1999
- 12,395.03: Number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing in its 20 previous trips to Road America. That represents 3,054 laps or 105 trips across Lake Michigan.
- 359,327.91: Total number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing since its inception. To put that in perspective, Corvette Racing is more than halfway to the distance traveled by Apollo 13 – the longest manned spaceflight in history: 622,268 miles. That means Corvette Racing has raced to the moon and more than halfway back!
Corvette Racing at Road America (wins in bold)
2002
No. 3 Corvette C5-R: Ron Fellows/Johnny O’Connell/Oliver Gavin – 2nd in GTS (Fellows pole; Gavin fastest race lap)
No. 4 Corvette C5-R: Andy Pilgrim/Kelly Collins – 1st in GTS
2003
No. 3 Corvette C5-R: Ron Fellows/Johnny O’Connell – 2nd in GTS
No. 4 Corvette C5-R: Oliver Gavin/Kelly Collins – 5th in GTS (Gavin pole, fastest race lap)
2004
No. 3 Corvette C5-R: Ron Fellows/Johnny O’Connell – 2nd in GTS
No. 4 Corvette C5-R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 1st in GTS (Beretta pole, fastest race lap)
2005
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Ron Fellows/Johnny O’Connell – 2nd in GT1
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 1st in GT1 (Gavin pole, Beretta fastest race lap)
2006
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Ron Fellows/Johnny O’Connell – 1st in GT1
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 2nd in GT1 (Gavin fastest race lap)
2007
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Johnny O’Connell – 2nd in GT1 (Magnussen pole, fastest race lap)
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 1st in GT1
2008
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Johnny O’Connell/Jan Magnussen – 1st in GT1
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 3rd in GT1 (Gavin pole, fastest race lap)
2009
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Johnny O’Connell – 3rd in GT2
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 6th in GT2
2010
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Johnny O’Connell – 4th in GT2
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Jan Magnussen – 3rd in GT2 (Gavin pole, fastest race lap)
2011
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Tommy Milner – 14th in GT
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Jan Magnussen – 5th in GT
2012
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 6th in GT
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 4th in GT
2013
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 2nd in GT
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 3rd in GT
2014
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 6th in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 7th in GTLM
2015
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 4th in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 7th in GTLM
2016
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 6th in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 1st in GTLM (5th to 1st in final 15 minutes)
2017
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 4th in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 5th in GTLM
2018
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 3rd in GTLM (Garcia fastest race lap)
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 2nd in GTLM
2019
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 4th in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 6th in GTLM (Gavin pole, Milner fastest race lap)
2020
No. 3 Corvette C8.R: Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 1st in GTLM (Garcia fastest race lap)
No. 4 Corvette C8.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 2nd in GTLM
2021
No. 3 Corvette C8.R: Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 2nd in GTLM (Taylor pole)
No. 4 Corvette C8.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 3rd in GTLM (Milner fastest race lap)
2022
No. 3 Corvette C8.R: Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 3rd in GTD PRO
About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world’s largest car brands, available in nearly 80 countries with nearly 2.7 million cars and trucks sold in 2021. Chevrolet models include electric and fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.
