CORVETTE RACING AT VIR: Third-Place Start for Garcia, No. 3 C8.R
ALTON, Va. (Aug. 26, 2023) – Corvette Racing and driver Antonio Garcia weathered intense heat Saturday to qualify on the second row for Sunday’s Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway – the second of two GT-only races this season for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Garcia posted a best lap of 1:45.133 (111.972 mph) in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R to qualify third. It was a close and intense 15 minutes with the top seven cars within 0.667 seconds – almost a mirror of the final practice where the five fastest cars had just 0.172 seconds between them… with Garcia part of that group.
Saturday was another scorcher of a day at VIR with air temperatures approaching 100 degrees by the start of qualifying and high humidity. Sunday’s peak ambient temperature is expected to be about 10 degrees lower than Saturday.
Corvette Racing is hoping to improve on last year’s runner-up finish and record its seventh class victory at the highly challenging 3.4-mile, 17-turn circuit. Garcia and teammate Jordan Taylor were overall winners in 2020 and finished second the last two years.
Garcia and Taylor won earlier this year at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in GT Daytona (GTD) PRO, their lone win so far this season. They’ve been on the class podium in four other races. Returning to Victory Circle also would keep championship hopes alive for the No. 3 Corvette drivers, their team and Chevrolet. The group is second in points and badly in need of victories in any of the remaining three rounds to challenge for the GTD PRO Drivers, Teams and Manufacturers titles.
The Michelin GT Challenge at VIR is scheduled for 2:10 p.m. ET on Sunday, August 27. The race will air live on USA beginning at 2 p.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 – QUALIFIED THIRD: “These were tricky conditions. The track is warm, and it was difficult to gauge the lap and the grip together with the setup we decided to go with in qualifying. We probably didn’t do the correct thing. The car wasn’t doing as I was expecting, so that led to a few mistakes. Instead of leaving the car the way it was to try and do something different, we ended up losing time to how it felt in FP2. It’s only qualifying but we should be there for the race. We are still close.”
2023 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship – GTD PRO (After eight of 11 events)
Driver Standings
- Ben Barnicoat/Jack Hawksworth – 2,810
- Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 2,641
- Daniel Juncadella/Jules Gounon – 2,594
- Klaus Bachler/Patrick Pilet – 2,587
- Alex Riberas/Ross Gunn – 2,468
Team Standings
- No. 14 Vasser Sullivan – 2,810
- No. 3 Corvette Racing – 2,641
- No. 79 WeatherTech Racing – 2,594
- No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports – 2,587
- No. 23 Heart of Racing Team – 2,468
Manufacturer Standings
- Lexus – 2,810
- Chevrolet – 2,641
- Mercedes-AMG – 2,594
- Porsche – 2,587
- Aston Martin – 2,479
CORVETTE RACING AT VIR: 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
- 3: Generations of Corvette Racing entries at VIR since 2012 – Corvette C6.R (2012-2013), Corvette C7.R (2014-2019) and the mid-engine Corvette C8.R, which races at VIR for the final time in IMSA competition this year
- 4: Overall VIR race wins for Corvette Racing – 2016, 2017, 2020 and 2021. Antonio Garcia was part of the first three
- 5: Class wins at VIR for Corvette Racing, the most among IMSA entrants. Tommy Milner and Oliver Gavin won in ALMS GT competition in 2012, and Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen won overall in 2016 and 2017. Garcia and Jordan Taylor drove the C8.R to a win in 2020 with Milner and Nick Tandy victorious in 2021.
- 9: Number of VIR victories for Chevrolet since 2002 covering both ALMS and the Rolex Series; that’s the most among manufacturers
- 14: Manufacturer Championships for Chevrolet and Corvette Racing since 2001
- 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
- 279: Event starts by Corvette Racing since 1999
- 6,183.57: Number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing in its nine previous trips to Virginia International Raceway. It surpassed 6,000 miles after 30 laps in last year’s race
- 359,619.37: 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 VIR (wins in bold)
2012
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 8th in GT (Garcia fastest race lap)
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 1st in GT (Clinched ALMS GT title)
2013
No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 3rd in GT (Clinch GT team, manufacturer titles)
No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 6th in GT
2014
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 7th in GTLM (Taylor replaced Magnussen – injury)
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 9th in GTLM
2015
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 6th in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 8th in GTLM
2016
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 1st in GTLM (Magnussen pole)
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 9th in GTLM (Gavin fastest race lap)
2017
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 1st in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 6th in GTLM
2018
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 2nd in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 6th in GTLM
2019
No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 3rd in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 4th in GTLM
2020
No. 3 Corvette C8.R: Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 1st in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C8.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 4th in GTLM
2021
No. 3 Corvette C8.R: Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 2nd in GTLM
No. 4 Corvette C8.R: Tommy Milner/Nick Tandy – 1st in GTLM (Milner pole)
2022
No. 3 Corvette C8.R: Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 2nd in GTD PRO (Taylor fastest race lap)
About Chevrolet
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