ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – GTLM RACE-WINNER: “It was a perfect day and a perfect weekend. We seemed to have a really good Corvette all weekend long. Everything we did worked in the right direction. Being on pole made things a little easier even if we lost track position right away, but Jordan did a fantastic job getting back to the lead and being in control of the race. We didn’t risk doing the driver change on the first pit stop because we didn’t know about BMW’s fuel fill time and didn’t want to lose track position. Other than that, Jordan had a fantastic drive in both stints. It’s a shame we had that second yellow because we had built up about eight or nine seconds over the 4 car, and that would have made things way easier for me! But knowing what Jordan did at the start and on his restart, I knew what I had underneath me. I had to believe the car was really good and was able to do pretty much the same as Jordan. Getting that little gap over Tommy gave me a little chance to breathe especially with all the traffic, which is really important here. It was pretty much a perfect weekend for Corvette Racing and the first win for me at Mid-Ohio and for Jordan, too. We’ll keep going race by race and see what happens the rest of the year.”COMPARING THE C8.R TO THE CORVETTE C7.R AT MID-OHIO: “This is definitely better. Last year we had a close race. We pushed the Porsche all the way to the end but didn’t have enough. This year the C8.R worked perfectly not just on a quick lap, and the consistency through the stint was the main thing. That allows you to work your way through traffic a little better. The restarts were very strong. The car is very consistent and easier to drive. The C7.R was a good car, as we proved over the years, but this is definitely a step forward.”MORE ON RACE PREP: “From the test we did at the simulator plus the test we did (at the Charlotte Roval), everything worked together for this race. Every time we hit the track or in the sim, we have an opportunity to develop the car and improve it. I think we did that, obviously. The baseline car we had here really worked. We had to still fine tune things and follow the track conditions, but all the preparations worked in our way.” | |