No. 64 Corvette heads team’s Test Day pace; No. 63 recovers after electrical issue.

LE MANS, France (Aug. 15, 2021) – At long last, Corvette Racing sent the mid-engine Chevrolet Corvette C8.R for its first laps around the Circuit de la Sarthe during nine hours of testing Sunday ahead of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Tommy Milner led the Corvette Racing effort in the No. 64 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette C8.R on Sunday with a lap of 3:53.440 (130.550 mph) in a highly competitive GTE Pro field. Less than a half-second separated the top seven cars, which bodes well for a thrilling race in less than a week’s time.

Milner shared the No. 64 Corvette on Sunday with Nick Tandy; the duo will welcome back Alexander Sims into the fold following a prior racing commitment earlier in the day.

The No. 63 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette C8.R had an up-and-down day that included an engine change following an electrical issue that stranded Antonio Garcia on-course in the third hour of the morning session. Four hours later and after hard and thorough work, the No. 63 re-emerged from the garage to continue its test program. 

Nicky Catsburg, driving with Garcia and Jordan Taylor, was the quickest driver in the 63 entry at 3:54.281 (130.115 mph). The trio are back together after winning the Rolex 24 At Daytona earlier this season.

Corvette Racing will return to the track Wednesday for two free practice sessions and qualifying. 

The 24 Hours of Le Mans on Aug. 21-22 with the green flag set for 4 p.m. CET and 10 a.m. ET. MotorTrend TV will air the race live with the MotorTrend App adding coverage of official practices and qualifying on Aug. 18 and 19. Live audio coverage will be available from Radio Le Mans starting with Sunday’s Test Day.

ANTONIO GARCÍA, NO. 63 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “I would have liked to do some more laps for sure since it’s the first year with the C8.R in Le Mans. But mostly out of the box it felt pretty decent, pretty good. We know which way to go; the things we worked on in the simulator seem to be working, which is a good thing. We’ll now try to get as much data as possible from both cars and work our way forward toward this week.”

JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 63 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “We didn’t do as many laps as we wanted to get in today, but the guys did a good job to give us as many laps as possible. It’s the first day of the new car at Le Mans, so every lap is important to get our data and to understand where we’ll be next week. Each driver got some laps – in traffic and in clean air – which is important for the race. We probably have a lot of things we want to tick off the list still come free practice, but I think it’s good to get this under our belt, get a couple of days off and look at all the data and understand where we are.”

NICKY CATSBURG, NO. 63 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “Not an easy day with the issue in the morning session which took a long time to repair, but the guys worked super hard and luckily we managed to get out near the end of the afternoon session. We got some laps in, the car felt pretty good. The sister car was running all day so we’ll be able to get some valuable information from them and we can learn from that. In summary, we survived the Test Day feeling pretty good, so we’re all good for the race.”