Fidani, Bell advance nine spots to finish season-best sixth in wild GTD battle LONG BEACH, Calif. (April 20, 2024) – AWA’s Orey Fidani and Matt Bell continued their upward momentum in the new Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R with their best finish of the season – a sixth-place GT Daytona (GTD) finish Saturday in the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. The pairing advanced from 15th in class at the start of the third round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship to knocking on the door of a top-five finish in a frantic and fraught 100-minute race around the Long Beach Street Circuit – the team’s first trip to the historic California circuit. |
MATT BELL, NO. 13 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: “I’m really happy with that result. Our first effort at Long Beach as a team and pulling a top-six out of the bag is pretty strong. It was a great effort by the team. We executed the pit stop really well and jumped some cars. Unfortunately on cold tires on the out-lap, I gave a couple of those up. There was some rough racing from competitors but fair in the end, and I managed to get them back later on. The Corvette was absolutely glued to the track. I think we were the best car around the corners. We were lacking just a little bit of straight-line speed to challenge those top-five guys. But I’m really proud of the effort this week. It’s definitely our cleanest and best week in the AWA Corvette era. A big thanks to the team, big thanks to Corvette, General Motors and Pratt Miller. We’ll keep rolling into Laguna Seca.” |