Milner, Gavin Score Last-Lap Victory for Corvette in BUBBA burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach
April 8, 2017
Staff Report
IMSA Wire Service
LONG BEACH, Calif. –
The
iconic hairpin turn at the Long Beach street circuit played a central
role in the fate of the No. 4 Corvette Racing team and co-drivers Oliver
Gavin and Tommy Milner two years in a row.
Last
year, this was the turn where Milner was spun out of the lead late in
the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race by Porsche driver
Frederic Makowiecki, enabling Makowiecki’s Porsche
teammate, Nick Tandy, to sneak past for the GT Le Mans (GTLM) class
victory. This year, the hairpin gave one back to the No. 4 teammates.
A
multi-car incident in the hairpin on the final lap of Saturday’s
100-minute BUBBA burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach had the
entire racetrack blocked as race-leading Antonio Garcia
approached the turn in the No. 3 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R ahead of
Milner and Richard Westbrook in the No. 67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford
GT. Garcia attempted to maneuver around the outside of the incident,
while Milner opted for the inside lane.
Moments
later, the No. 52 Prototype managed to get going and drive away after
the incident, opening the inside lane. With Garcia still blocked by cars
on the outside, Milner passed through the
incident scene and headed for the checkered flag, with Westbrook
following close behind.
“I
tried going to the outside in the same situation last time and lost
spots,” Milner said. “This time I went on the inside. I wasn’t even full
speed (after the incident); I was cruising thinking
we were under caution. Then I saw the green flags and the guys on the
radio said we were P1.
“Racing
is a lot about luck in a lot of cases. I don’t think I’ve seen it play
out this way for me or for anyone else. It’s good to just get some
points for me and for Chevrolet and Corvette.”
When
all was said and done, Milner and Gavin were standing atop the victory
podium, with Westbrook and co-driver Briscoe in second and the No. 912
Porsche GT Team of Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor
in third. It was the fourth consecutive race in which the GTLM podium
featured three different manufacturers.
Garcia
and co-driver Jan Magnussen – who qualified on the GTLM class pole fell
to fifth at the finish, behind the No. 25 BMW Team RLL co-drivers Bill
Auberlen and Alexander Sims.
Milner
and Gavin, the 2016 WeatherTech Championship GTLM champions, picked up
their first victory of the season, but it was the second in a row for
Corvette Racing, which won last month’s Mobil
1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Fueled by Fresh From Florida with the No. 3
team. Overall, Corvette Racing now has 104 victories.
Milner
now has won 15 times in major U.S. sports car racing between the
WeatherTech Championship, American Le Mans Series and GRAND-AM Rolex
Sports Car Series, and it’s the 47th victory for Gavin.
Vanthoor
led the first 42 minutes of the race in the No. 912 Porsche 911 RSR
before pitting to turn the car over to Estre. That handed the GTLM lead
to Martin Tomczyk in the No. 24 BMW M6 GTLM,
and a few laps later, the former DTM champion found himself in the
overall lead when the Prototype class made their final pit stops of the
race.
With
less than 15 minutes remaining, the No. 24 car slowed dramatically with
an apparent mechanical problem, handing the lead to Garcia. The No. 24
ultimately wound up seventh in class.
An
opening-lap crash ruined the day for both the No. 66 Ford GT co-driven
by Joey Hand and Dirk Mueller and the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari
488 GTE of Toni Vilander and Giancarlo Fisichella.
WeatherTech Mercedes-AMG Team Takes First WeatherTech Championship Win
The
No. 50 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG team played its race strategy to
perfection in the BUBBA burger Sports Car Grand Prix at Long Beach,
enabling co-drivers Cooper MacNeil and Gunnar Jeannette
to earn their first victories in WeatherTech Championship competition
in the GT Daytona (GTD) class.
After
a 13th-place class qualifying performance on Friday, the team elected
to start the race on fresh tires, moving the No. 50 Mercedes-AMG GT3 to
the back of the field. When the second of the
race’s five full-course cautions came out after 18 minutes, MacNeil
brought the car into the pits for service and handed over the controls
to Jeannette.
Jeannette
then inched his way forward through the field as others made their
stops, making his way to the head of the GTD field at the 47-minute mark
in the race. He stayed there for the rest
of the way, winning by 7.492 seconds over teammate Jeroen Bleekemolen
in the No. 33 Mercedes-AMG entry.
“We
qualified pretty far toward the back but times were tight,” MacNeil
said. “We made the strategy call to change to four fresh tires and to go
absolutely last. So, it’s pretty good to go from
last to first.”
MacNeil
had five previous victories in ALMS competition, while Jeannette won
six ALMS races and one GRAND-AM race previously. It was the second
consecutive WeatherTech Championship win for Mercedes-AMG,
which earned its first victory in the series last month at Sebring, and
was the manufacturer’s first 1-2 sweep.
“I
kind of blacked out for a minute and the next thing I know the
checkered flag is out and I’m crossing the finish line,” Jeannette said
playfully in the post-race press conference. “A lot of
things can happen if you roll the dice and take a risk and taking a
chance was the only card we had to play.
“I
knew my job was to go back out and go as fast as I could and not use
any fuel. We might have had to take one more splash but with enough
yellows we didn’t have to. With 35 cars going around
we kind of lucked out and we didn’t have to risk it and it worked out
our way.”
The
runner-up result for Bleekemolen and co-driver Ben Keating allowed them
to extend their lead in the GTD point standings to 21 points, 98-77,
over No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 co-drivers
and defending GTD champions Christina Nielsen and Alessandro Balzan,
who finished third in the race.
The
next round for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is the
Advance Auto Parts Sports Car Showdown at Circuit of The Americas in
Austin, Texas on Saturday, May 6.
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