Late-race dramas bite Corvette contingent in 12 Hours
SEBRING, Fla. (March 15, 2025) – Corvette Racing’s quartet of Corvette Z06 GT3.R teams suffered cruel ends to the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring on Saturday with misfortune ruining chances for GTD PRO and GTD victories in America’s oldest sports car race.
Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports’ No. 3 Corvette was the highest-finishing Z06 GT3.R with a seventh-place GTD PRO finish for Antonio Garcia, Alexander Sims and Daniel Juncadella. The result marked an unfortunate turn of fortunes for the group of four Corvettes – all of which led their respective classes on multiple occasions.
The No. 4 Z06 GT3.R of Tommy Milner, Nicky Catsburg and Nico Varrone – also in GTD PRO – ran a clean race for the first three-quarters and ran second when it had to stop for a repair to the IMSA-mandated scrutineering logger. It cost the Corvette three laps and dropped Varrone to 10th in class. Catsburg made up a spot near the end to move himself, Varrone and Milner to ninth at the end.
DXDT Racing appeared set to challenge for its first podium in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition. However a late-race mechanical issue knocked the No. 36 Corvette of Charlie Eastwood, Alec Udell and Salih Yoluc – who drove a triple-stint to start – from the top-four in GTD down to eighth at the finish.
AWA’s hopes of a second straight GTD victory took a huge hit with damage to the right-front of the No. 13 Corvette on a restart with a little less than three hours remaining. Orey Fidani drove three of the first four stints, and Lars Kern and Matt Bell steadily worked their way forward and into the class lead on multiple occasions.
Subsequent stops for repairs dropped Bell from seventh to 12th but the Corvette remained on the lead lap up until being hit late by the leading LMP2 entry. It relegated AWA to 10th in GTD.
Perhaps the Corvette in the best position late in the race was the No. 3 of Alexander Sims, Antonio Garcia and Daniel Juncadella. After a strong run through the day and some clever strategy, Sims worked his way up from sixth to fourth inside the final 90 minutes and was on a fuel strategy that likely would have had him challenging for the victory.
However, the Sebring circuit bit the Corvette as Sims had to pit for a rear with a little more than an hour with a broken right-rear suspension component. It knocked him from third in class and in the podium fight to seventh and two laps down.
Corvette Racing’s next event in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is the Long Beach Grand Prix from the Long Beach (Calif.) street circuit on April 11-12.
SELECT CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R DRIVER QUOTES
ALEXANDER SIMS, NO. 3 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R:“A bit of a bummer, this one. Our Corvette had pretty good pace to be honest. Going into the night, it seemed to come alive a bit. We had good pace and I was able to get up to third before we had the rear suspension problem. It did seem the leaders at the end had pace that we didn’t, to be honest. I don’t think we would have gotten any better than that. Even holding on to third would have been a struggle. Full credit to the Pratt Miller guys for getting it turned around quick and salvaging what we could. We didn’t give up and still managed seventh place, which could have been worse if they weren’t as quick in the pits as they were. On to the next one.”
NICKY CATSBURG, NO. 4 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: “An unlucky race. I think we had an OK Corvette but not fast enough to challenge for the win. I feel like we are on a bit of an unlucky streak at the moment. It’s not anyone’s fault. We have to take things as they come and ride those waves. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.”
CHARLIE EASTWOOD, NO. 36 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: “We had a great race. We got a little unlucky with the second-to-last yellow because we had a good fuel advantage and it got wiped out. We hung in there and crept from eighth to third. It was very enjoyable being in the middle of the fight. We just got very unlucky at the end when what we thought was a comfortable P4 – which turned out would have been a podium with the Ferrari boxing on the last lap. I’m gutted for the team. They’ve worked so hard since Daytona. We just didn’t have the pace there and came here with a lot more. They deserved more, unfortunately. They worked tirelessly between now and then to make sure we had the Corvette that we had in the race. Such a shame but we have to look at the positives. We were in the mix for the podium and the win, and we executed a good race. We just need Lady Luck on our side and we’ll be right there.”
OREY FIDANI, NO. 13 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: “We were having a good race once again up until we had the little incident in the final stages. We had a very strong car, and I’m proud of the team and their efforts. We know what we’re capable of. We’ll take this finish and move forward to the next one.”
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