SEBRING, Fla. (March 19, 2021) – Antonio Garcia put Corvette Racing on the GT Le Mans (GTLM) pole position Friday for the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Advance Auto Parts as the team looks to continue its strong opening to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Garcia, driving the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R, set a lap of 1:54.910 around the 3.74-mile, 17-turn circuit for Saturday’s race in central Florida. He was a sliver quicker – by just 0.034 seconds – than teammate Tommy Milner in the No. 4 Corvette.
Garcia was the GTLM pole-winner for November’s rescheduled 2020 Sebring 12 Hours. He also was part of the class-winning lineup for the Rolex 24 At Daytona with Jordan Taylor and Nicky Catsburg.
ANTONIO GARCIA, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – GTLM POLE-WINNER: “It was very stressful! We are not used to qualifying together with the GTD cars, so initially it was very difficult for us to gauge how much room you had to fall back in order not to catch them. It seemed like no matter how much we were back, we were still catching them. I knew Tommy was coming from behind me, so I couldn’t really open a gap; I didn’t want to bother him. The first attempt was really bad. The second one I thought I had enough gap but had to dive for a pass going into Turn 17. I knew it was a good lap, so I had to go for it. I’m very happy for Corvette. It’s always good to have Corvette Racing up there 1-2 even if it is a long race. Let’s see if we can keep those positions like we did at Daytona.”ON QUALIFYING WITH GTD CARS: “We are just used to qualifying alone, so we need to get used to it. For the first race, it was a little bit of a shock for us because we didn’t know how to place ourselves on track not to interfere with them and for them to not interfere with us. That’s the key thing. They have 12-13 cars in that category so it’s always difficult around Sebring anyway. When it comes to shorter races, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Sebring is a long track. I think we all more or less got a clean lap but for sure it was stressful.” |
