CORVETTE RACING WINS IN DETROIT!

CORVETTE RACING WINS IN DETROIT: Milner, Tandy Win Battle of Corvette C8.Rs at Belle Isle

The No. 4 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R driven by Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy outpaced their Corvette Racing teammates Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor by 0.226 seconds to win the GT Le Mans (GTLM) category of the Detroit Sports Car Challenge on Saturday, June 12th, at Belle Isle Park.  The race was a non-points GTLM round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Both Corvettes made their lone pit stops of the race three laps apart, with Taylor pitting first after 42 minutes.  Tandy followed three laps later with a 55-second lead, causing the gap between the cars to shrink to just over a second with 25 minutes to go in the race.   The remainder of the race was a showdown between the two Corvette race teams with Garcia trying to catch Milner both before and after a late-race caution period.

Corvette Racing’s participation at Belle Isle was a huge deal for both the team and the track. For one, the Belle Isle appearance provided a unique opportunity for hundreds of Chevrolet production team members – many of whom contributed to both the C8.R and the road-going Corvette Stingray – to see Corvette Racing in-person.  The reveal of the C8.R nearly 18 months ago was the culmination of almost six years of work between the team of engineers and designers from the Corvette production side and Corvette Racing.

Second, the Belle Isle race was Corvette Racing’s first IMSA event since March. With a busy schedule of IMSA championship events stretched over the next six weeks – plus the 24 Hours of Le Mans in mid-August – Belle Isle provided everyone involved in the program a nice refresher on team operations and procedures.  Saturday’s race also was the first street event for the Corvette C8.R, and the team also collected valuable data ahead of the Long Beach street circuit in September.