IMSA @ Lime Rock, This weekend

[teamzr1]

Long tracks and short tracks, Corvette C8.R Racing has won at them both.
It’s the latter that’s next on the team’s calendar as the longest-running sports car racing program in North America heads to Lime Rock Park for Saturday’s FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix presented by Liqui Moly.

The No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R of Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor will look for back-to-back victories this weekend, having won the last time out at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park two weeks ago.
As was the case then and at most stops on the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship schedule, Corvette Racing owns a stellar record at Lime Rock.

With six victories at the 1.474-mile, seven-turn road course in northwestern Connecticut, no team in IMSA history has won more times at Lime Rock than Corvette Racing. In fact, no team in the paddock has half the number of victories at the circuit.
A seventh Lime Rock triumph would go a long way toward helping Garcia, Taylor, the No. 3 C8.R team and Chevrolet get back in prime position to fight for the GT Daytona (GTD) PRO championship. There are five rounds to go, counting this weekend, with the Corvette squad third in the Drivers, Manufacturers and Teams standings and within striking distance of first place.

The Garcia/Taylor pairing has stood on the top step at Lime Rock before, taking victory in the GT-only race in 2021.
This is the first of two races this season to feature only GTD PRO and GTD cars, the second coming at Virginia International Raceway in August.
Of note, six of Corvette Racing’s 126 victories worldwide have been overall wins, including the 2021 Lime Rock win for the No. 3 Corvette.

The FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park is scheduled for 12:10 p.m. ET on Saturday, July 22.
The race will air live on the USA 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 on 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:

“It’s always good to go right back to racing after a win. Everyone I think gets to the track feeling better about things, so I hope that is the case for us at Lime Rock. This is a very intense and physical race usually. It’s so hard to pass and if we are stuck behind GTDs, especially early, then it can be a long and frustrating day.
This race is all about track position, so we need to arrive at the track with everything right on our Corvette, so we can start fine-tuning immediately
That will be the easiest and best way to start toward the front and hopefully stay there.”

JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R:

“Lime Rock is such a unique race for us. It’s nothing like any of our other events, a true bullring of a track.
I feel like we’ve had a few races in a row now that we’ve been executing on all levels, and everything fell into place for us at CTMP to get the win.
With Lime Rock being such a big race on execution, I always like our chances with Corvette Racing.
And if we need to make some positions on track, maybe some of my stock car experience from this year can come into play.”

 

[teamzr1]

Antonio Garcia posted the fastest lap of the second practice session for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Series Championship race from Lime Rock Park.
Garcia jumped to the top of the leaderboard in the final minutes of the session with a time of 51.029s in the No. 3 Corvette C8.R.
The fastest times in the session came in the closing 10 minutes, when the GT Daytona PRO cars rattled off qualifying simulations on a quiet track.

Jack Hawksworth in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC-F GT3 was second quickest with a time of 51.155s, 0.126s behind Garcia’s time.
If Garcia, or another driver, can match the Spaniard’s time, they will break the track record in qualifying later this evening.

Rounding out the top three was Patrick Pilet in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R with a time of 51.195s.
The top time in GT Daytona was Frederik Schandorff in the No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren 720s GT3 Evo who clocked a 51.589s after a session-leading 61 laps in the hour.

UP NEXT: Qualifying is later this evening at 5:40pm ET. The race is tomorrow, Saturday, as opposed to the usual Sunday main event.

 

[teamzr1]

Ross Gunn has claimed pole for Saturday’s FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix, putting The Heart of Racing on point for the GT-only IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship round.
The Aston Martin factory driver reeled off a best lap of 50.593 in the No. 23 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 to edge out the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth by 0.191 seconds.

Antonio Garcia qualified third in the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD, followed by Jules Gounon in fourth aboard the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.
The No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Patrick Pilet completed the top-five overall, which were all occupied by GTD Pro entries.

 

[teamzr1]

Ross Gunn and the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin will start the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Series Championship at Lime Rock Park from pole position after the Briton bested the rest of the GT Daytona Pro field by nearly two-tenths of a second.
It was a remarkable performance by the Aston Martin factory driver and puts Heart of Racing in its best position this season to secure a win on the difficult-to-pass bull ring.

The honors in looked destined to be headed the way of Antonio Garcia, who carried over his free practice pace into the qualifying session.
Garcia was the quickest GTD Pro driver from the moment the session went green, besting his own time on a number of occasions.

With the Aston Martin’s tires up to temperature, Gunn laid down a record-setting 50.593s to leapfrog the Corvette. Jack Hawksworth soon followed suit in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC-F GT3 with a time of 50.784s to move onto the front row, relegating the No. 3 Corvette to the second row of the grid.

Jules Gounon’s No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 was fourth and Patrick Pilet in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R was fifth.

In GT Daytona, Mike Skeen in the No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes-AMG secured pole with a time of 51.517s, an astounding 0.007s ahead Frederik Schandorff in the No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren 720s GT3. Misha Goikhberg’s No. 78 Forte Racing powered by USRT Lamborghini Huracan GT3 rounded out the top three in GTD.

Garcia goes under old track record, will roll off third on grid in GT-only showcase

LAKEVILLE, Conn. (July 21, 2023) – Corvette Racing and Antonio Garcia will charge toward the first corner for the Northeast Grand Prix on Saturday from inside the second row after a third-place result in qualifying Friday at Lime Rock Park.

Garcia, in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R, set a best time of 50.897 (104.257 mph) in a record-breaking, 15-minute session around the 1.474-mile, seven turn Lime Rock layout.

He’ll start Saturday’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race and will team with Jordan Taylor, the same duo that won the GT-only race in 2021 with the No. 3 Corvette.

The five cars in the GTD PRO class were under the previous track record of 51.079; they were all separated by 0.481 seconds.
Garcia set the fastest GTD PRO lap in Friday’s first practice and was quickest overall in the final session prior to qualifying.
That’s a good sign for the long-run pace of the Corvette, which won for the first time this year two weeks ago at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

While the Garcia/Taylor pairing currently sits third in points, the No. 3 Corvette is in the thick of the GTD PRO championships, with 109 points separating the team from the class-leading No. 14 Lexus in the standings.

With six victories at the 1.474-mile, seven-turn road course in northwestern Connecticut, no team in IMSA history has won more times at Lime Rock than Corvette Racing. In fact, no team in the paddock has half the number of victories at the circuit.

This is the first of two races this season to feature only GTD PRO and GTD cars, the second coming at Virginia International Raceway in August.
Of note, six of Corvette Racing’s 126 victories worldwide have been overall wins, including the 2021 Lime Rock win for the No. 3 Corvette.

The FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park is scheduled for 12:10 p.m. ET on Saturday.
The race will air live on the USA and stream live on Peacock inside the United States and IMSA.com outside the U.S.
IMSA Radio will also air the race beginning at 11:30 a.m. ET 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 IN GTD PRO:

“It was a bit messy with the traffic, for sure.
Obviously, in practice, it is way easier to find a rhythm and finding a gap. Here everyone was finding their way in, and I didn’t quite manage to do it. It doesn’t mean I would have done anything different.
The balance of the car changed a tiny bit compared to practice. It just wasn’t quite there. We know that we can go from there and that we have a decent race car.”

 

[teamzr1]

The Heart of Racing claimed a sweep in Saturday’s FCP Euro Northeast Grand Prix, taking wins in both the GTD Pro and GTD classes with its Aston Martin Vantage GT3 machinery.
Alex Riberas drove the No. 23 Aston Martin to a 0.336-second win over the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 of Ben Barnicoat for the overall win in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT-only contest at Lime Rock Park.

The team’s No. 27 Aston of Roman De Angelis and Marco Sorensen, meanwhile, scooped up GTD honors.
While briefly losing the lead through the first round of pit stops, pole-sitter Ross Gunn regained the top spot in the No. 23 car when the Ian James-led crew elected to keep the Aston out on track while under the race’s first full course caution.

It enabled Gunn to retake the lead and the car maintain the lead through the second round green flag stops in the final 1 hour and 13 minutes of the race.
A second caution, for Brendan Iribe’s crashed No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, set up a 48-minute run to the checkered flag, which Riberas controlled.
It not only marked the first win of the season for Gunn and Riberas, but also their first podium finish in GTD Pro this year.
Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth extended their class championship lead with a runner-up finish, with the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Klaus Bachler and Patrick Pilet completing the overall and class podium in third.

Bachler benefitted from a gear selection issue during Jordan Taylor’s final pit stop, who stalled the car coming out of the pits

Which dropped the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R GTD to an eventual fourth place result.

Sorensen and De Angelis, meanwhile, were classified fifth overall for their second class win of the season.

 

[teamzr1]

Garcia, Taylor move into second in points after 4th place finish in GT-only fight

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 the 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.”

 

[Vetteheadracer]

Watched the race and it was dreadful. No overtaking in either class pretty much and the 5 cars in GTD Pro was a procession.