The Le Mans week seemed like one to forget come Thursday night at La Sarthe for Corvette. Starting towards the back of the GTE-PRO field with the #64 car, and the #63 car set to sit out the race after a crash with Jan Magnussen behind the wheel at the Porsche Curves.
Corvette went on to climb up through the field with the soul remaining C7R and claim the top spot in the GTE-PRO category by 5 laps, after the #51 Ferrari of Bruni, Vilander and Fisichella hit trouble with one hour to go. It was a win against all odds of the #64 crew of Oliver Gavin, Jordan Taylor and Tommy Milner.
The attention at the American crew quickly turned to that of their commitments stateside in the Tudor United Sportscar Championship. With the #63 car written off, Corvette do not have enough time to rebuild the car for the next race at Watkins Glen on the 28th of June. This has meant calling on the full season GTE-AM category competitors, Larbre Competition.
Larbre run the spare factory Corvette C7R in the WEC, which means that now it is in need back in the States, Corvette will use the #50 WEC car for the 6 Hour race at Watkins Glen on the 28th. The hope is that with the big gap between Le Mans and the next WEC race at the Nurburgring at the end of August, that Corvette will return the car to Larbre before the next race.
In the meantime, Corvette plan to build a new C7R for the American team, meaning that Larbre will be able to continue on with their Corvette for all of the remaining WEC rounds.
Images – James Clarke (WEC-Magazin)