Corvette C7.Rs finish fifth, sixth in GT-only round at steamy Lime Rock

LAKEVILLE, Conn. (July 20, 2019) – Corvette Racing sweat its way through the Northeast Grand Prix on Saturday to fifth- and sixth-place finish in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Hoping to replicate one of its finest moments – the 100th victory in program history – the pair of Chevrolet Corvette C7.Rs came short in scoring victory No. 100 in IMSA competition. The pair of velocity yellow Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvettes finished where they began on a sweltering July afternoon.

Antonio García and Jan Magnussen led the Corvette charge in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette C7.R and remained third in the GT Le Mans (GTLM) Drivers Championship with the result. Oliver Gavin and Marcel Fässler were right behind in the No. 4 SiriusXM/Mobil 1 Corvette as the team now heads to Road America in two weeks.

The team elected to split their pit strategies at the halfway point of the race. Garcia and Gavin started the race with each driving a single stint before handing over to Magnussen and Fässler, respectively, near the 40-minute mark. The No. 4 Corvette stopped 40 minutes later and committed to a three-stop strategy that saw Fässler drive a double-stint and run as high as second before handing back over to Gavin for the final 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, Magnussen drove 55 minutes in his stint and switched back to Garcia for the final 63 minutes. The No. 3 Corvette managed to pick up three spots in the final run to salvage a top-five finish on much more worn tires.

Corvette Racing’s next event is the IMSA Road Race Showcase at Road America from Aug. 2-4. It will be streamed live on the NBC Sports App and NBCSports.com at 2:30 p.m. ET on Aug. 4 and aired on NBC Sports Network at 6 p.m. ET. Live audio coverage will be available on IMSA Radio, Sirius 138, XM 202 and SiriusXM Online 972.

ANTONIO GARCÍA, NO. 3 CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R – FINISHED FIFTH IN GTLM: “Another tough day for us. The heat didn’t help with our attempt to make the tires last over a full fuel run. The strategies were all over the place and maybe we could have made a difference by going in a different direction. I don’t know but this is something we will look at for more hot races. It’s not been the best couple of races for Jan and I, and tough for our championship.”

JAN MAGNUSSEN, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R – FINISHED FIFTH IN GTLM: “For sure this is one of the hardest races I’ve done. Obviously it was super-hard trying to get the tires to last a full stint. There were a few different strategies going on today. I don’t know if we were on the correct one. Whatever the case, we didn’t make it work for us. This was a tough weekend and another not-so-great weekend for the championship. We’ll figure it out come Road America.”