CORVETTE RACING AT ROAD AMERICA: Taylor Third in Qualifying

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Press Release:

CORVETTE RACING AT ROAD AMERICA: Taylor Third in Qualifying

Inside second-row starting position could prove beneficial in push for season’s second win


ELKHART LAKE, Wisc. (Aug. 5, 2023) – Jordan Taylor put Corvette Racing on the inside of the second row in class Saturday for qualifying ahead of Sunday’s feature event for the IMSA SportsCar Weekend at Road America.


Taylor set a best lap of 2:03.143 (118.340 mph) in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R that he shares with Antonio Garcia in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GT Daytona (GTD) PRO class. Critically, the result put Taylor and the No. 3 C8.R on the inside of the second row of the GTD field on a track that is much more of a one-lane surface following a track repave late last year.


Just as key is that the Corvette gained critical class points as it qualified ahead of the GTD PRO championship-leading Lexus. The Taylor/Garcia duo, Corvette Racing and Chevrolet entered Road America second in the Drivers, Manufacturers and Teams championship standings with four races left in the season.


A victory Sunday would be the ninth class at the circuit for Corvette Racing.


This is the first time for the Corvette program on the recently repaved Road America track. Gone is the cheese-grater of a surface that promoted high levels of tire wear and degradation with high levels of grip available around the circuit… provided cars stay on the racing line. As a result, track position – and qualifying toward the front, as a result – has a higher level of importance this year compared to past Road America races.


Key was cross-program tire analysis from Chevrolet’s IndyCar teams, which provided valuable input from their race in June at the circuit. That, combined with pre-event work at GM’s Driver in the Loop simulator, played a prominent role in the results so far this weekend.


Road America and the Corvette brand have a lengthy history dating back nearly 60 years. Chevrolet routinely used the track to test and validate the performance of early-generation Corvettes with that tradition continuing into the present day. Road America was the site of the first on-track running of the Corvette C8.R in 2018.


The IMSA SportsCar Weekend race at Road America is scheduled for 10:10 a.m. ET on Sunday, August 6. The race will air live on USA beginning at 11 a.m. ET and stream live on Peacock inside the United States and IMSA.com outside the U.S. IMSA Radio will air all on-track sessions beginning with Friday morning’s practice at IMSA.com with the race call also on XM 207 and SiriusXM Online 992.

JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – QUALIFIED THIRD IN GTD PRO: "We were quickest yesterday and made some gains in laptime from then, but everyone else made humongous jumps. We are where we thought we would be laptime-wise. It just wasn't enough for pole. It's kind of been the trend of the year where qualifying is a bit of struggle for us but we race better. Hopefully that plays out tomorrow. We're closer in qualifying now than we have been the past few rounds, so hopefully that's another good sign.


"It'll be tricky to race. Off-line around here is very slippery. Track position is very important and being somewhat defensive when guys are making moves not to be put in a precarious position is going to be tricky. There will be a lot of mistakes tomorrow because of that."


2023 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship – GTD PRO (After seven of 11 events)

Driver Standings

1. Ben Barnicoat/Jack Hawksworth – 2,462

2. Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 2,311

3. Daniel Juncadella/Jules Gounon – 2,302

4. Klaus Bachler/Patrick Pilet – 2,281

5. Alex Riberas/Ross Gunn – 2,083


Team Standings

1. No. 14 Vasser Sullivan – 2,462

2. No. 3 Corvette Racing – 2,311

3. No. 79 WeatherTech Racing – 2,302

4. No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports – 2,281

5. No. 23 Heart of Racing Team – 2,083


Manufacturer Standings

1. Lexus – 2,462

2. Chevrolet – 2,311

3. Mercedes-AMG – 2,302

4. Porsche – 2,281

5. Aston Martin – 2,094

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CORVETTE RACING AT ROAD AMERICA: By the Numbers

• 1: As in one team, one manufacturer and one model of car for 25 years of racing: Corvette Racing, Chevrolet and the Chevrolet Corvette

• 4: Generations of Corvette Racing entries at Road America since 2002 – Corvette C5-R (2002-2004), Corvette C6.R (2005-13), Corvette C7.R (2016-19) and Corvette C8.R (2020-current). This year’s race is the second at the track for the GTD-spec, mid-engine racing Corvette

• 4: Number of cars Tommy Milner passed in the final 15 minutes of the 2016 Road America race. He and Oliver Gavin went on to win in class and capture the GTLM Drivers Championship

• 8: Number of victories at Road America for Corvette Racing, the most of any entrant in IMSA

• 8: Pole positions at Road America for Corvette Racing by four different drivers

• 10: Number of drivers who have won races at Road America for Corvette Racing – Gavin (four); Olivier Beretta (three); Johnny O’Connell (two); and Kelly Collins, Ron Fellows, Antonio Garcia, Jan Magnussen, Milner, Andy Pilgrim and Jordan Taylor (one each)

• 12: Fastest race laps for Corvette Racing drivers at Road America. That includes the last three of the last four seasons: Tommy Milner (2019 and 2021) and Antonio Garcia (2020)

• 14: Manufacturer Championships for Chevrolet and Corvette Racing since 2001

• 14: Number of IMSA victories at Road America for Chevrolet, the second-most of any manufacturer in IMSA

• 22: Number of Road America events for Corvette Racing counting this year’s IMSA race

• 27: Tracks at which Corvette Racing has won races – Baltimore, Charlotte Motor Speedway, COTA, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park/Mosport, Daytona, Detroit, Houston, Laguna Seca, Le Mans, Lime Rock, Long Beach, Miami, Mid-Ohio, Monza, Portimão, Portland, Road America, Road Atlanta, Sebring, Sonoma, St. Petersburg, Texas, Trois Rivieres, Utah, VIR, Washington DC and Watkins Glen

• 34: Number of drivers for Corvette Racing since 1999. Ben Keating and Nico Varrone joined that list with their participation – and victory – in the 1,000 Miles of Sebring for the World Endurance Championship

• 126: Victories worldwide for Corvette Racing – 113 in North America, eight at Le Mans and one in the FIA WEC

• 278: Event starts by Corvette Racing since 1999

• 12,395.03: Number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing in its 20 previous trips to Road America. That represents 3,054 laps or 105 trips across Lake Michigan.

• 359,327.91: Total number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing since its inception. To put that in perspective, Corvette Racing is more than halfway to the distance traveled by Apollo 13 – the longest manned spaceflight in history: 622,268 miles. That means Corvette Racing has raced to the moon and more than halfway back!


Corvette Racing at Road America (wins in bold)

2002

No. 3 Corvette C5-R: Ron Fellows/Johnny O'Connell/Oliver Gavin – 2nd in GTS (Fellows pole; Gavin fastest race lap)

No. 4 Corvette C5-R: Andy Pilgrim/Kelly Collins – 1st in GTS


2003

No. 3 Corvette C5-R: Ron Fellows/Johnny O'Connell – 2nd in GTS

No. 4 Corvette C5-R: Oliver Gavin/Kelly Collins – 5th in GTS (Gavin pole, fastest race lap)


2004

No. 3 Corvette C5-R: Ron Fellows/Johnny O'Connell – 2nd in GTS

No. 4 Corvette C5-R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 1st in GTS (Beretta pole, fastest race lap)


2005

No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Ron Fellows/Johnny O'Connell – 2nd in GT1

No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 1st in GT1 (Gavin pole, Beretta fastest race lap)


2006

No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Ron Fellows/Johnny O'Connell – 1st in GT1

No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 2nd in GT1 (Gavin fastest race lap)


2007

No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Johnny O'Connell – 2nd in GT1 (Magnussen pole, fastest race lap)

No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 1st in GT1


2008

No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Johnny O'Connell/Jan Magnussen – 1st in GT1

No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 3rd in GT1 (Gavin pole, fastest race lap)


2009

No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Johnny O'Connell – 3rd in GT2

No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Oliver Gavin – 6th in GT2


2010

No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Johnny O’Connell – 4th in GT2

No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Jan Magnussen – 3rd in GT2 (Gavin pole, fastest race lap)


2011

No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Olivier Beretta/Tommy Milner – 14th in GT

No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Jan Magnussen – 5th in GT


2012

No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 6th in GT

No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 4th in GT


2013

No. 3 Corvette C6.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 2nd in GT

No. 4 Corvette C6.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 3rd in GT


2014

No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 6th in GTLM

No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 7th in GTLM


2015

No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 4th in GTLM

No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 7th in GTLM


2016

No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 6th in GTLM

No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 1st in GTLM (5th to 1st in final 15 minutes)


2017

No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 4th in GTLM

No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 5th in GTLM


2018

No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 3rd in GTLM (Garcia fastest race lap)

No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 2nd in GTLM

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2019

No. 3 Corvette C7.R: Jan Magnussen/Antonio Garcia – 4th in GTLM

No. 4 Corvette C7.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 6th in GTLM (Gavin pole, Milner fastest race lap)


2020

No. 3 Corvette C8.R: Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 1st in GTLM (Garcia fastest race lap)

No. 4 Corvette C8.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 2nd in GTLM


2021

No. 3 Corvette C8.R: Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 2nd in GTLM (Taylor pole)

No. 4 Corvette C8.R: Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner – 3rd in GTLM (Milner fastest race lap)


2022

No. 3 Corvette C8.R: Antonio Garcia/Jordan Taylor – 3rd in GTD PRO


Ryan Smith
Judy Kouba Dominick