Corvette Racing: C7.Rs May Be With Us For A Little While Longer
 

Corvette Racing: C7.Rs May Be With Us For A Little While Longer
By
Mitch Talley


If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
That axiom appears to be true for the Corvette Racing team, which has racked up eight GT wins out of 19 tries at Le Mans.

Corvette Racing program manager Doug Fehan says this year won’t be the last for the Chevy Corvette C7.R to compete, despite debuting at Le Mans and IMSA four years ago.


He believes another axiom might be true, too: You’re not getting older, you’re getting better.

“I don’t like to refer to it as an old car,” Fehan said of the C7.R during an interview with Motorsport.com, “but it has many years of participation here at Le Mans, which is not a bad thing.”

In fact, Fehan said they went faster the night before this interview in the C7.R than ever before, “which means that development pays off. Improvement in tires, aerodynamics, chassis – all those things.”

That’s why he says he’s “not concerned” that the C7.R is getting some age and faces increasing competition from newer models.

“At the end of the day the BoP is designed to be able to level that playing field [so] I’m not concerned with the age of the car at all,” Fehan said. “Not at all. Its durability and reliability and performance have been well-proven. We feel pretty confident in bringing them out as we know they’re dependable.”

The team that spends the least amount of time in the pit box usually wins – not necessarily the fastest car, Fehan pointed out.

He believes work by Michelin developing a new tire for the C7.R’s fifth season at Le Mans is “first and foremost” behind the gains made by his team this year. “That’ll be an interesting development,” he said, “(but) we know it’s better.”

He also said the team has seen “some gains” in aerodynamics, braking, and overall handling with the chassis and is tweaking different setups, caster, amber, “getting all those things to work in unison. That’s what we’ve been working on.”

With all the rumors about the C8 possibly making its debut in 2019, Fehan played dumb, at least to the media, saying he expects to see the same C7.R version “for a while.”

“Eventually there will be an eighth-generation Corvette,” he said. “When they introduce that car, we’ll be racing it. But I don’t think that’s going to be for a while.”


Source:
motorsport.com



http://www.corvetteblogger.com/2018/...erm=2018-06-22