Full Season WEC Campaign Helps to Prepare Corvette Racing for the 24 Hours of Le Mans

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Full Season WEC Campaign Helps to Prepare Corvette Racing for the 24 Hours of Le Mans

Photo Credit: Richard Prince for Corvette Racing


You can never work too hard or prepare too much, or at least that’s what Corvette Racing is hoping as the team prepares for its second 24 Hours of Le Mans with the C8.R.

This year, Corvette Racing has committed to a full-season FIA World Endurance Championship campaign in the GTE-Pro category, as opposed to one or two single-car runs before Le Mans in past years.

In an interview with Sportscar365, Corvette Racing drivers Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy – who man the No. 64 Corvette C8.R – believe the extra WEC work will make the team be better prepared for this year’s 90th Le Mans – slated for June 11-12.

“More than anything, it’s probably the operational side of things that is a benefit for the team,” Milner explained to Sportscar365. “The team has spent a lot of time in the offseason preparing for the way the pit stops work, which they do most years anyways, but a lot of the time is also spent practicing IMSA pit stops.”


At Sebring and Spa, the team realized there was “a little bit of time to be gained in the pitlane,” with mere seconds sometimes making a difference in the platform finishers, “so I think in that sense, it’s been a huge help,” Milner said.

The full season of WEC competition has also helped the racers get a better feel for the WEC-specific tire compounds, since the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship switched from “confidential” Michelin specs to customer-spec Pilot Sport S9M tires for this year’s GTD Pro. Without the extra WEC runs, Corvette would have been at a disadvantage, Milner said.

“It’s also been helpful for us as we haven’t done as much testing as now this year and with IMSA being on a customer Michelin tire, we normally would have run on the confidential tire [there],” he said. “So had we not done the WEC this year, we would have been behind the eight ball a bit on track running on the compound of tires that we’ll use this year. So we have some experience on that, and we have a good baseline for that as well.”

All things considered, Milner says it’s been a good change for the team to run more WEC races to learn how the pit stops work and to get more time on a tire “we wouldn’t normally have run in the U.S.”

Tandy says he is ready for Corvette Racing to “have a really strong run” at winning Le Mans.

“We’ve done the whole WEC season buildup, we know the car, we know the tires, we know from this race last year what we need to focus on,” he said. “So there’s no excuses. We’re here to win, and anything else will be a failure.”


Source:
Sportscar365

Related:
Corvette Racing at Le Mans: Great to See Everyone Again!
Corvette Racing at Le Mans: Sims, 64 C8.R Quickest in Testing
[VIDEO] Watch Corvette Racing as the C8.Rs Undergo Scrutineering for Le Mans

 



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