IMSA Chevrolet Sports Car Classic 5/31/25

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DETROIT (May 26, 2025) – Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports will be back on home turf this weekend with its pair of Chevy Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs part of the field for Saturday’s Chevrolet Sports Car Classic.

The No. 3 and No. 4 Corvettes help make up a 22-car grid of GTD PRO and GTP entries for the fifth round of this year’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with both cars looking to build on levels of success from the 2024 event in which they qualified first and second in class.

Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims, second in GTD PRO points, share the No. 3 Corvette and are coming off a third-place podium finish in the previous round at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
A year ago at Detroit, Garcia claimed pole position in GTD PRO, but the No. 3 suffered a mechanical problem on the way to the green flag and finished well down the order.

That left Tommy Milner and Nicky Catsburg to fight for victory in the No. 4 Z06 GT3.R. Milner set the fastest race lap early on as the Corvette led the first 39 laps of the race. Shortly after Catsburg took over, he was hit and spun out following a mid-race restart that resulted in damage to the Corvette and a ninth-place finish.

This is the second appearance for the Corvette/Pratt Miller squad and the rest of the GTP and GTD PRO cars at the downtown Detroit circuit, which runs around the Renaissance Center and the global headquarters of General Motors, is the shortest on the calendar at nine turns and 1.654 miles around. The program previously scored three victories at the Belle Isle circuit.

The Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic is scheduled for 3:40 p.m. ET on Saturday, May 31. The race will air live on Peacock in the U.S., and IMSA’s YouTube channel internationally. IMSA Radio will air all on-track sessions at IMSA.com along XM 206, SiriusXM Online 996.

CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R DRIVER QUOTES

ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R:

“Obviously, Detroit is an important race for everyone on this team. It is the home race for Corvette, we race around the Renaissance Center and Pratt Miller isn’t far away. So there will be many guests and fans who we want to do a good job for this weekend.
This is the only street race for us in GTD PRO, and I like these a lot. It puts a lot of importance on precision and how you do a lap, not just top speed. I would really like another pole position there, and this time a win in our ‘home’ race.”

ALEXANDER SIMS, NO. 3 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R:

“I take a lot of pride driving and racing a Corvette in Detroit for our home event. In terms of the racing, the Detroit track is quite a challenging one. It’s much shorter than any other track will race this year, but it has vastly different sections.
There is the long straight in front of the RenCen where you can create opportunities out of the corner leading on to it, but also the tight hairpin at the end. The other sections are tight and twisty where you do have to take some risks.

Some are calculated and others not so much. But that’s part of street racing and what the fans want to see.
Last year Antonio did a mega job putting the car on pole, but unfortunately our race was in effect finished before it started with a mechanical problem.
I’m confident that this year will be much different, and we can finish at the front this time around.”

TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R:

“I’m excited for Detroit. I thought we had a good Corvette there last year. It’s obviously an important event for Chevrolet, for GM and for Pratt Miller, as well. Last year we had lots of guests from all three groups, so it was a big event for the whole team and for Chevrolet.
This is a polarizing racetrack. I enjoyed it. I thought it was fun. The beauty and the downside of street-track racing is you get exciting racing, but you’re also exposed to risky passes and exposed to situations that can be outside your control in many situations.

So, as always, we have to be diligent with how we race. We are going there with some sense of confidence and excitement for the weekend. That’s not just because we were faster last year, but it’s great to have so many family members of the race team and guests of Chevrolet and GM around in the shadow of the RenCen makes that race even more special.”

NICKY CATSBURG, NO. 4 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R:

“I’m looking forward to going back to Detroit again. I’m personally not a fan of the track. It’s very difficult and challenging, and having to be close to the walls in every corner makes it pretty tough. But it is a very important race for us as a team and as Corvette.
It’s one where we want to do very well. Last year we were in a very good spot to have a proper result and maybe even a win.

Tommy had a very strong qualifying and I think he brought the car in the lead. Then I had an incident with one of the Lexus which took us out of the race. Hopefully this year, we can fight for our first win in the 4 Corvette, which is something we’ve been trying to achieve for some time.
It would be great to achieve that on home soil.”

 

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Considering the iconic appeal and noticeably bright yellow livery, it’s hard to picture a Chevrolet Corvette flying “under the radar” in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Yet that’s precisely where the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R is heading to this weekend’s Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic.

The No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, running as either “Rexy” or “Roxy,” has garnered the headlines in the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class with back-to-back wins to lead the standings in a bid to repeat as champion.
But the No. 3 Corvette shared by Alexander Sims and Antonio Garcia is second, just 70 points behind. That’s miles closer than where they were a year ago at this time, mired in fifth place and 169 markers in arrears.

Taking a pause from General Motors’ driver-in-loop simulator last week in Charlotte, Sims admitted that the No. 3 lacks some pace compared to the Porsches and Ferraris in the GTD PRO class. Still, he and Garcia have remained in contention with consistent performances yielding two podium results in the first three races.
They could be three-for-three in top-three finishes had a rear suspension part not failed in the final hour over the unforgiving Sebring International Raceway circuit at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

“It’s been a good start to the year, I’d say,” Sims said during the break from sim testing. “Not perfect, but good.

“Whereas last year, it felt like the peaks were a bit higher, but the lows were a bit lower, as it were, over the first few races,” he added, “it feels like we’ve been able to smooth that out a little bit. It feels like this year we’re doing a solid job, and yes, to be second in the standings is nice.”

Sims, Garcia and endurance driver Daniel Juncadella opened the season with a runner-up showing in the Rolex 24 At Daytona. The suspension issue led to a seventh-place finish at Sebring, but Sims and Garcia rebounded to finish third earlier this month in the TireRack.com Monterey SportsCar Championship.

“We haven’t had the fastest car just yet, but nevertheless the car has felt nice to drive,” Sims explained. “I think, bar Sebring, the two results we had were as good as we could have hoped. Daytona probably exceeded it a little bit, the way the race panned out at the end. It was a super-hard race, but I was able to move forward in the last hour and a half through just hard racing and being close to other people and being opportunistic rather than on pure pace.

“It just feels like we’ve been able to execute clean race weekends pretty well so far.”

Now they head to Detroit which, while tied with Long Beach for the shortest race on the schedule at 100 minutes, is one of the most important since it’s the home event for both team and manufacturer. The 1.654-mile downtown street circuit was new to WeatherTech Championship competitors last year, and Sims was instantly taken by it.

“It’s a really cool track to drive on your own in practice,” he said. “I really couldn’t wipe the smile off my face because it was great to just do laps, and it’s not that often that you have that at a track where simply driving is enough to just put a smile on your face.”

The smiles remained through qualifying, when Garcia won the Motul Pole Award and the sister No. 4 Corvette of Nicky Catsburg and Tommy Milner qualified second. Those smiles turned quickly upside down in the race, though, when Garcia was forced to pit on the opening lap with a mechanical issue. He and Sims wound up finishing 10th.

With limited passing opportunities on the narrow track, Sims emphasized the importance of qualifying again on Friday.
“We’ll need to qualify well to have much of a chance,” he said.
“It’s a short race, so not many options on the pit stops or the pit stop, as it were. If someone gets lucky and goes long and there’s a yellow or something, then they’ll benefit hugely.”

Another strong race result, he added, keeps the No. 3 Corvette in the hunt for the GTD PRO crown. Detroit is the first of three races in a six-week span that could determine whether Sims and Garcia are in contention when they reach the season finale in October. ‘Steady as she goes’ is the operative phrase.

“Relative to last year, it feels like we’re executing good weekends,” Sims said. “It’s probably going to be through consistency that we might be able to challenge for the championship.
That’s really the hope that it can evolve over the next couple of races so that we can fight at the front. We’ll know more over the next race or two and then see whether we’re going to be in the fight for the championship or not.”

Practice and qualifying for the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic take place Friday.
The race streams live at 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday on Peacock in the U.S., as well as on IMSA.tv and the IMSA YouTube channel globally.