Corvette C7.Rs Ready for 24 Hours of Le Mans After Official Test Day
Corvette logs quickest GTE lap, team racks up big test plan.
Ahead of their 18th start at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Corvette Racing enjoyed a strong Official Le Mans Test Day on June 4. Oliver Gavin in the #64 Corvette C7.R clocked the quickest GTE lap time of the entire day. His blistering 3:54.701-second trip topped the class by more than 0.25 second. The team also logged more than 150 laps between the team’s two cars, an important milestone on the only day the Le Mans Circuit is available for testing outside of Le Mans race week.
Fast lap times only matter for bragging rights on the Test Day, however. Corvette engineers will use the data gathered from testing to create the cars’ race setups, aero balances, tire-wear information, and fuel-consumption numbers. The team needs all that data to make the Corvettes competitive in a very deep GTE-PRO class. Defending class winners Chip Ganassi Ford Racing return with all four of the Ford GTs. A trio of Ferrari 488s will join the party along with two factory cars each from Aston Martin and Porsche.
Meet the Team
In the #64 car, Gavin will race for the 16th time in a Corvette at Le Mans. He’ll be searching for his sixth class win in the race. Joining him in the car are his full-season co-driver Jordan Taylor and three-time overall Le Mans winner Marcel Fässler.
Jan Magnussen will drive the #63 Corvette in his 13th Le Mans weekend. Like Gavin, he has racked up a pile of wins and will be hoping to get his fifth Le Mans class win. Garcia, the quietly determined Spaniard, joins Magnussen in the #63 car. The team’s third driver, Jordan Taylor, has distinguished himself in 2017 by winning the first five rounds of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. That included wins at the 24 Hours of Daytona and 12 Hours of Sebring.
Larbre Competition Runs Art Car
French privateer team Larbre Competition will again run one of last year’s Corvette C7.Rs from Corvette Racing. Drivers Fernando Rees, Romain Brandela, and Christian Phillipon will drive the #50 Corvette and compete in the Pro-Am GTE-AM class.
Larbre debuted their art-car livery at the Le Mans Test Day, where Rees logged the second-quickest time in the GTE-AM class. French artist Ramzi Adek came up with the pop art-style design, called “Human,” that glows in the dark. We’re excited to see this 2016-spec C7.R glowing in the deep Le Mans dark, hopefully on the way to a double class win for the three Corvettes in the field.
CHECK OUT: What Forum Members Are Saying About the Le Mans C7.Rs
Photos: [Richard Prince/Chevy Racing; Larber Competition]
