Corvette Racing Goes From Fifth To First In Final Minutes, Pulls Off Shocker At Road America For 101
- Aug 8, 2016
- 4 min read
Restarting fifth with only five minutes remaining, Corvette Racing pulled off a miracle Sunday at Road America. Tommy Milner navigated a series of incidents in the closing laps and made a last-lap pass on the No. 67 Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT of Richard Westbrook to win the Continental Tire Road Race Showcase alongside co-driver Oliver Gavin.
It was the fourth IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship win and sixth podium of the season for the GT Le Mans (GTLM) points-leading No. 4 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R.
“It was extraordinary, it was an epic win for us,” said Gavin, who watched Milner carve through the field. “Everyone was in disbelief. I think there were plenty of people at the truck thinking, how’d we win that?”
Lined up directly behind the Prototype leaders on the final restart, Westbrook tried to hold off the No. 62 Ferrari 488 GTE of Toni Vilander for the lead when the No. 911 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR of Nick Tandy got a run on the leading Ford and Ferrari from third. Tandy moved to the inside of the top two for the lead when contact forced his Porsche into a spin in Turn 5.
That moved Milner into the third position after he also got around the No. 912 Porsche North America Porsche 911 RSR of Frederic Makowiecki. Milner found himself in second with two laps remaining when Vilander’s Ferrari spun after making contact with the No. 55 Mazda Prototype of Tristan Nunez.
Despite a one-second lead, Westbrook’s wounded Ford was no match for Milner who made the winning pass on the final lap and went onto win by 0.730 seconds.
““It was a wild swing of emotions,” said Milner of the final three laps. “My mindset at the end of the race was to hopefully catch the Porsche in front of me and try to make something there. During the yellow they said on the radio there was a chance we could restart but we might finish under yellow. I went from bummed to not being able to race for fourth to seeing all of the guys ahead of us.
“Then seeing the Ford in the lead, knowing how close we are in points, I sort of hoped we’d be there. Everything happened in front of me. The Porsche spun, then the Ferrari got taken out, I got some help for sure. I was able to get by the 912 and then get close to the Ford. It looked like they were a little hurt, but I don’t know how we went from fifth with three laps to go.”
Westbrook and co-driver Ryan Briscoe finished second and now sit 13 points, 264-251, behind Milner and Gavin with just three races remaining.
The No. 100 BMW Team RLL BMW M6 GTLM of John Edwards and Lucas Luhr rounded out the GTLM podium. The series of late-race incidents relegated the Ferrari of Vilander and co-driver Giancarlo Fisichella to fifth, and the Porsche of Tandy and co-driver Patrick Pilet to seventh.
Dodge Viper Wins In GTD As Bleekemolen Hangs On Despite Late Restart
Jeroen Bleekemolen did not want to see a late-race restart Sunday at Road America, but found himself in that exact position in the closing stages of Sunday’s Continental Tire Road Race Showcase. In the end, it didn’t matter for the driver of the No. 33 ViperExchange.com/Cruising with the Monkey Dodge Viper GT3-R, who despite admittedly making a mistake in five-minute sprint to the finish, beat the No. 73 Park Place Porsche 911 GT3 R of Joerg Bergmeister and Patrick Lindsey to the stripe by 1.76 seconds
It was the second win of the season for Bleekemolen and co-driver Ben Keating, and closed their GT Daytona (GTD) points deficit to 21 points, 243-222, behind the series-leading No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GTE of Christina Nielsen and Alessandro Balzan, who finished third.
“I didn’t like that last yellow,” said Bleekemolen. “I had Robin Liddell behind me, he was a little quicker. Then I got a break in the traffic and it was then that the yellow came out. It was like war out there; every class was fighting for position.”
Despite restarting second, Liddell and co-driver Andrew Davis wound up fifth following the closing laps in the No. 6 Stevenson Motorsports Audi R8 LMS GT3.
Andy Lally and John Potter finished fourth in the No. 44 Magnus Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3. Entering the race second in GTD points, 13 points back, Lally and Potter enter the final three-race stretch still second in the standings, but now sit 15 points, 243-228, behind Scuderia Corsa and the duo of Nielsen and Balzan.
The No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari team earned the DEKRA Green Award. The award recognizes the cleanest, fastest and most efficient team in the GTLM class in each race through a scoring system developed in a partnership between IMSA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy and SAE International.
It was a rough day for the GT-class pole winners. Shortly after starting from the top spot in GTLM, Dirk Mueller reported a broken right-front suspension on the opening lap. He returned to the track five laps down in the No. 66 Ford GT and finished ninth. Meanwhile, the No. 23 Team Seattle / Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Alex Riberas and Mario Farnbacher led the race’s opening 22 laps in GTD, but a bid for a second win this season fell short following a penalty at the race’s halfway point. Farnbacher was penalized a stop, plus 60 seconds for running the red light and pit exit. He returned to the track 14th, two laps down, and ultimately finished 12th.
The last five races at Road America in the GTLM class have been won by five different OEMs. The win was also Corvette Racing’s 101st in competition and comes one race after Gavin and Milner picked up win No. 100 at Lime Rock Park.
The GT Le Mans (GTLM) and GT Daytona (GTD) classes will be spotlighted in the next IMSA WeatherTech Championship race, the Michelin GT Challenge at VIRginia International Raceway on Sunday, August 28. The P and PC classes return to action in the Lone Star Le Mans at Austin’s Circuit of The Americas on Saturday, Sept. 17.
Contact:
nsiebens@imsa.com
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