Not Expecting To Win
Corvette Racing's Antonio Garcia says that the team wasn't expecting to win the GTLM class of the Watkins Glen Six Hours, so leading several laps and finishing runner-up was a major achievement.
Although the Corvette C7.Rs of Oliver Gavin/Tommy Milner and Garcia/Jan Magnussen battled with the Porsche 911 RSRs throughout the first half of the
race, it was a perfectly timed pitstop, just before a caution period,
for the Gavin/Milner #4 car that vaulted it into the lead. Major fuel saving by Magnussen in a previous stint then also saved time on pitroad, and
allowed Garcia to hunt down his teammate and grab the lead in class.
Following another round of stops, the Dirk Muller/Joey Hand #66 Ford GT hitthe front, but after the final caution period, Garcia was still able to keep the
Ford in sight and finished just 3sec adrift, and a similar distance ahead of the Patrick Pilet/Nick Tandy Porsche.
Said Garcia: "I think we had very close to a perfect race. You'll always look back and think about things we could have done differently.
"I had fuel reserve for the last six laps or so. I don't know how much fuel we were able to use at the end so maybe that didn't allow us to go as hard
at the end. We had to play it more conservative just in case. Perhaps we would have been able to be more aggressive and race the Fords harder.
"Thinking about where we have had lately and where we have been in practice and qualifying, to be fair we weren't dreaming about a win. We wanted a good
result, and today was almost a win where we led a lot of laps. We can't be upset or depressed by second place. That's a top job and result for everyone at Corvette Racing."
Source: David Malsher, Motorsports