When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
If you get a chance tune in to one of 3 different FOX channels which will cover the entire 24 hour race which starts Saturday.
DETROIT (June 12, 2017) – Corvette Racing is ready to put a year’s worth of preparation to the test this week when it goes for a ninth class victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The annual French endurance classic – this year’s running is the 86th edition – gets the green flag at 3 p.m. French time (9 a.m. ET) on Saturday with Corvette Racing sending six drivers and its two Chevrolet Corvette C7.Rs into battle against the world’s best.
Corvette Racing has a Le Mans pedigree that no team in the paddock can match. This will mark the 18th consecutive appearance at the 24 Hours – the most of any active entrant. Even more remarkable is the American makeup of the program: 18 straight years with an American team running an American car from an American manufacturer. No GT team can match the team’s collection of victories, the most recent coming in 2015.
Oliver Gavin was the quickest driver in the GTE Pro class during the annual Le Mans Test Day on June 4. Driving the No. 64 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette C7.R with Tommy Milner and Marcel Fässler, Gavin led an incredibly close fight with only 0.684 seconds between the top seven cars in class. Among them was the No. 63 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Corvette C7.R of Antonio Garcia, who was fourth-fastest in class. He will drive this week with Jan Magnussen and Jordan Taylor.
The six drivers have combined for 18 Le Mans victories.
My son & I plan to do the all-nighter again. He bought a season pass to the FIA /World Endurance Championship races for about 50 Euros. You can buy Le Mans separately for about 10. Info is on their website.
Not sure specifically about the differences between Le Mans specs and IMSA but the WEC specs and their own BOP numbers are what are used for Le Mans so there are some changes.
Glad to see the "Yanks" will have some support from the forum members. The teams and pit crews are really first class, then you throw in those 6 drivers and you've really got something to cheer about!
The 2015 Corvette Z06 and Corvette C7.R were developed alongside each other and thus, have many things in common. One area where the racecar differs from the street car, though, is under the hood. The C7.R actually produces less power than the 650 horsepower supercharged Z06, and Chevrolet’s Senior Manager of Performance and Racing Engines, Russ O’Blenes, recently explained why that is.
The TUDOR United Sportscar Championship series in which the C7.R competes mandates that all cars must not have an engine larger than 5.5-liters for competitive reasons. This forced the Corvette Racing team to forego the supercharged LT4 engine in favor of the naturally aspirated 5.5-liter Pratt & Miller unit.
“The TUDOR rules are developed to allow for parity between many vehicles and engine packages. They use engine displacement and restrictors to manage this,” explained O’Blenes. “The supercharged 6.2L LT4 in the Z06 makes well over 100hp more than we currently compete with in the GTLM cars.”
Despite the difference, the Corvette Racing team is still able to learn from the 5.5-liter engine and relay any information they may have gained to the production Corvette team. This is because the two engines share technologies such as their direct fuel injection systems.
“Even after development finished, we still work closely with the production team to share lessons learned and discuss engine and development techniques that help the production and racing engines improve,” O’Blenes said.
The Corvette Racing team is constantly making fine adjustments to the 5.5-liter engine in order to gain small amounts of power, however due to rule restrictions, they are only able to squeeze so much power from the engine without breaking certain regulations.
“We do not find 5hp gains, it just is not there. Instead, we are looking for 0.5hp gains, but if we find 10 of them then we’ve gained the 5hp that we hoped for,” O’Blenes said.
“That is why the details are so important. From how the engines are built, to how the data is collected. It is very difficult to consistently measure half a horsepower. Everything in the test cell must be monitored and controlled to be able to trust the data,” he added.
Corvette Racing engineers can’t just keep adding horsepower without thinking of the other aspects of racing, though. Having lots of power on tap is great, but they also need the reliability to tackle 24-hour endurance races while maintaining good fuel economy
“It is all about the details,” said O’Blenes. “Every component in the engine must be perfect and the right part. We have developed this engine for many years and continue to push each component to get the best performance and reliability possible. It is important to break parts from time to time on durability to ensure that you are not leaving anything on the table. Too heavy of a rod or too much valve spring pressure for example, you need to be near the edge but not fall off.”
Let the fun begin!!
Please do not let the BOP decide the winner like last year!!!
LOL, I think BOP may well decide it. The Ford GT, which was the dominant car last year finishing 1,3 & 4 in GT-Pro, is now the slowest car in that class by a couple of seconds in testing, as a result of BOP. They both took away boost and added ballast.
I was at the COTA race in May, and they were also off the pace. Look for another adjustment soon because it looks like they've neutered that car.
I'm in Germany right now and very much looking forward to watching this. Easy to find motorsports on TV over here. I figure the hotel sports bar will have this up, so it's wings, beer, and loud cars for me this weekend.
Wishing the Corvette team great luck. I've set my DVR to record the full race and am looking forward to watching it as I do every year. Most of the coverage focuses on the Prototypes, but at least some of it shows our guys in action.
I agree with Foosh; there are very few parts on the race car that are production line pieces. Emblems & taillight lenses appear to be standard GM parts but body panels are certainly not. The NASCAR cars of the '50's-'60's were production based as were the Trans Am series cars of the early '70's. After that those series and the IMSA all changed to essentially replica bodies on specially built frames or in the case of Corvette I believe a stock frame is used but it pretty much ends there. Even looking side by side at my 1:18 diecast yellow C7 Z06 compared to the C7.R diecast the race version is more aggressive, lower, etc. They are similar, for sure, but I doubt a template would be the same for a stock one and a C7.R. That's probably the same for all manufacturers. It will be interesting to see what the 'final' BOP adjustments will be as I believe there is still an opportunity to make a change prior to the race.
06-12-2017, 05:54 PM
Corvette Racing at Le Mans this weekend
