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CORVETTE RACING AT LE MANS: Third-Row Start for No. 81 Corvette

Eastwood, Andrade team to qualify sixth in Hyperpole for TF Sport
LE MANS, France (June 12, 2025) – TF Sport’s Charlie Eastwood and Rui Andrade teamed to qualify TF Sport’s No. 81 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R on the third row of a stacked LMGT3 field for this weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.
In Thursday’s two-phase Hyperpole session, Eastwood advanced the TF Corvette out of the 12-car field with the second-fastest time of Hyperpole 1 – 3:54.646 (129.929 mph) followed by Andrade’s career-best GT lap at Le Mans in the eight-car Hyperpole 2, a 3:55.740 (129.307 mph) on his final lap to stay on the third row.
It cements the No. 81 Corvette among the lead cars at the start of Saturday’s race, which features a massive field of 24 GT3 cars representing nine manufacturers. Eastwood and Andrade got the chance in Hyperpole after teammate Tom Van Rompuy advanced from Wednesday’s initial qualifying session in fifth place.

With Thursday’s results, all three Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs know their starting positions. AWA’s No. 13 Corvette of Matt Bell, Orey Fidani and Lars Kern will roll off 20th in class for the team’s Le Mans debut after winning the IMSA Bob Akin Award in the 2024 season. TF Sport’s No. 33 Corvette – driven by LMGT3 championship leaders Daniel Juncadella, Jonny Edgar and Ben Keating – will start 23rd in class.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans is scheduled for 10 a.m. ET / 4 p.m. CET on Saturday, June 14. MotorTrend will air the full race live in the U.S., with full live streaming coverage available through the MAX app in the U.S., and the FIA WEC app internationally. Radio Le Mans also will provide live streaming audio coverage of all sessions as well.
CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R HYPERPOLE DRIVER QUOTESCHARLIE EASTWOOD, NO. 81 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R – STARTING SIXTH IN LMGT3: “Clearly, the top couple of cars are super-fast, but we haven’t been the sixth-fastest cars since we’ve been here all week. So again, I think all three of us did a really good job… Tom yesterday to get us in and continue on and then Rui had a really good last lap there. In the mix for sure. We’re not the fastest but definitely not the slowest. We can definitely fight from there. The Corvette and the team have been super-faultless. We’ve been tuning the car more and more to a really good place. As we have in the last couple of races, we have executed really well up to now. We just need to make sure we continue to execute this weekend as well.”
RUI ANDRADE, NO. 81 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R – STARTING SIXTH IN LMGT3: “I’m really happy with how things went. Obviously, Charlie’s lap was incredible in H1. So that was our main objective for that session to get to Hyperpole 2. The starting position doesn’t determine your race, but it’s always nice to start up ahead, avoiding a little bit of the mess at the start. It’s a long race and you want to have a nice, easy start to just flow into it. “For me, the lap felt pretty good at the end there. I missed the peak a little bit in the beginning, but in the last lap it felt really good. I’m happy with it. I think that was the most I could have done. The third row is not so bad. I think the whole team has done a really good job so far. There are no issues with the car and everything’s running fine. So I’m happy with it. Now it’s time to relax a bit and then enjoy the race.”