Chevrolet Racing

Chevy Racing–CORVETTE RACING AT SEBRING: Corvette C7.Rs in the Thick of GTLM Fight

CORVETTE RACING AT SEBRING: Corvette C7.Rs in the Thick of GTLM Fight
Saturday victory would be 10th in class at Sebring for Corvette Racing

Garcia fifth, Milner sixth in ultra-tight GTLM qualifying
Corvette Racing going for fifth consecutive Triple Crown victory
Action Express Racing Corvette DPs fill out second row of Prototype grid

SEBRING, Fla. (March 18, 2016) – Corvette Racing will find itself right in the middle of another victory in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh from Florida on Saturday following GT Le Mans qualifying session. After finishing 1-2 in class to open the 2016 season in the Rolex 24 At Daytona, the team’s two Chevrolet Corvette C7.Rs were part of a tight fight in the class Friday with all 10 cars within 0.768 seconds.

Antonio Garcia, part of last year’s Sebring-winning lineup in the No. 3 Corvette C7.R, qualified fifth with a best lap of 1:58.856 (113.280 mph). Right behind was Tommy Milner with a 1:58.878 (113.259 mph) in the No. 4 Corvette C7.R, which was the class-winning car at the Rolex 24.

Corvette Racing is aiming for its 10th class win at Sebring and third in four seasons. The team also has won four straight events as part of sports car racing’s Triple Crown: the 2015 Rolex 24, Sebring 12 Hours and 24 Hours of Le Mans plus this year at Daytona.

Milner, Oliver Gavin and Marcel Fässler are back together after winning the Rolex 24 by 0.034 seconds in a 1-2 finish for Corvette Racing. Garcia, Jan Magnussen and Mike Rockenfeller are sharing the sister Corvette. Things remain razor-thin between the two Corvettes with only 0.022 seconds separating them on their best qualifying laps.

Between the six Corvette Racing drivers, the group has 13 class victories. Gavin has five wins, Magnussen four, Garcia two, and Milner and Fässler one each; the latter’s was an overall win 2013. Magnussen and Garcia were part of the winning lineup a year ago.

The Corvette brand has long been a force at Sebring since its racing debut 60 years ago. Of Chevrolet’s 27 class victories in America’s oldest sports car race, 22 have been by a production-based Corvette including nine for Corvette Racing since 2001. In all, Corvette Racing has 98 victories worldwide.

Cameron Leads Corvette DP Qualifying Efforts
Action Express Racing paced the Corvette Daytona Prototype contingent in Prototype qualifying Friday as Chevrolet power goes for its second straight overall Sebring victory. Dane Cameron qualified third at 1:51.943 (120.275 mph) in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering/Team Fox Corvette DP that he will drive with Eric Curran and Scott Pruett.

Cameron was 0.262 seconds quicker than reigning Sebring co-champion Christian Fittipaldi in the No. 5 Mustang Sampling Corvette DP. He set a lap of 1:52.205 (119.995 mph) in the Corvette DP he will share with Joao Barbosa (with whom he won Sebring in 2015), Felipe Albuquerque and Pruett.

Marc Goossens will start behind Fittipaldi in Visit Florida Racing’s No. 90 VisitFlorida.com Corvette DP after a 1:53.185 (118.956 mph), with Rubens Barrichello lining up behind Goossens in Wayne Taylor Racing’s No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP.

The 64th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring is set for 10:40 a.m. ET on Saturday, March 19. It will air on FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports 2 and FOX Sports Go. Live audio coverage from IMSA Radio is available on IMSA.com.

ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R – QUALIFIED FIFTH IN GTLM: “(The times in qualifying) open up the race for everybody. We are all in six or seven tenths, at least the majority of us. Except for the first two cars, the rest of us are within three tenths. It is a classic, tight GTLM grid. It was difficult to judge what the track would be like in qualifying. It’s way different from this morning definitely. Based on how everything went in practice and how the car was, I think we are in good shape. I wouldn’t say I had a clean run at all, so looking back at how we did in practice and how the car behaved there, we just need to look at how good the car will be in the race. We just need to look and analyze how the car is and see if we can get anything toward the race, but if not, I still think we are pretty good.”

TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R – QUALIFIED SIXTH IN GTLM: “That is kind of where we sort of expected to be. From testing here we thought we had good race cars. We made some changes since we’ve been here this week. The conditions are different so we have adjusted to that, and you see that the two cars are within a couple hundredths of each other. We are all pretty equal. I think coming in here we kind of knew we weren’t going to get on pole, but we always have great race cars. This track is really rough. There are lots of new cars in the class. We just need to keep our nose clean and just be there at the end. We will come away with good points no matter what. If it rains, everything else might change.”

DANE CAMERON, ACTION EXPRESS RACING NO. 31 WHELEN ENGINEERING/TEAM FOX CORVETTE DP – QUALFIED THIRD IN PROTOTYPE: “Some days all you do is be the best of what you are. That is what we did today and we are quite happy with that. I think we have a really good race car. Track conditions at Sebring change so fast with the weather and the amount of cars in other series that are running here. After the Continental Tire race the track was really different so I wasn’t quite as happy with the car as I was in the morning…but the car is still very good, and very well-prepared for the race. We are starting in third, up near the front and down on the inside so it will be a good view going into Turn One. It is going to be a long 12 hours tomorrow but the Action Express boys have us well prepared.”