Press Release:

CORVETTE RACING AT THE GLEN: Nicky Catsburg Q&A

GTD PRO championship co-leader back for title fight after Le Mans triumph


Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports driver Nicky Catsburg met with members of the media via Zoom on Monday afternoon to discuss this weekend’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen at historic Watkins Glen International. The Corvette Racing factory driver not only leads the GTD PRO championship with No. 4 Corvette teammate Tommy Milner but is also fresh off his second career 24 Hours of Le Mans class win with TF Sport in another Corvette Z06 GT3.R.



NICKY CATSBURG, NO. 4 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R

Certainly a lot of great momentum after winning Le Manas. How do you keep that going this week at Watkins Glen?

“Le Mans obviously was very cool to come away with the win there. For sure there’s lots to talk about that. I just hope I can carry that momentum into Watkins Glen. I feel like in Detroit and pretty much the whole season, the No. 4 Corvette has been performing quite well. And I really hope now in Watkins we can finally get that win that I feel we deserve. And when you just mentioned some of my stats, the last IMSA victory was 2022… that’s disastrous! Hopefully we can soon add a win to that list.”

 
What do you enjoy most about driving and racing at Watkins Glen?

“I immediately have to think about how cool the track is. So what I’m looking forward to most is just coming back to this track. It is a super nice high-speed flowing track with loads of grip, and it’s just one of these American tracks that I love to go to. So honestly, I cannot wait. Even though the weather does seem to be a bit crazy, which every now and then is the case in Watkins Glen… I remember a red-flag situation maybe last year or a few years ago. So let’s hope we can actually get to race the full time. But yeah, the track is amazing and I cannot wait to be back.”


On if the nature of WGI makes it easier or harder on car setup than others.

“I feel like a very similar amount of work will go into the preparation for this event as every other event. I do have to say, I feel like this is a difficult place, because if there was no Bus Stop chicane with the big curbs, it might have been a bit easier. But now you really need to find a combination there. You need a car that also works over the curbs and takes those jumps well, and then has very nice platform control in all those high-speed flowy kinds of corners. So it’s a difficult place, but there will be a very similar amount of work done by the guys in the shop and also by us in the simulator. It’s not very different from most other events.”

 
The top-four in the championship are separated by 31 points. You and Tommy are leading but winless this year. It’s almost like how the No. 3 crew was last year. What’s your approach as you’re sort of hitting the halfway point of the season?

“I feel that last year, we were almost going for what I would call a day’s success – trying to get that win and not focus so much on the championship because the start of the season was quite rough. Now we are in a position where we really need to keep the championship in mind because we’re currently leading, albeit with just a very small amount of points. So that win is something that we both really want to achieve. We also want to be safe and make sure that we have good points scoring every time… so maybe not make that last-moment defending action against a Lexus that comes from behind. You need to make sure that you get the points. The victory, yes, is important. We want it, but the championship is more important.”

 
And how did it feel to win Le Mans a couple of weeks ago? That’s your first win with the Z06 GT3.R.

“It might actually be. So I didn’t think of it like that yet. And it was obviously very, very cool to win Le Mans again. Very cool to do it with the returning Ben Keating with his elbow injury. We had a very fast car. We had Ben that executed perfectly. I think we were the only car doing the strategy that we did – getting the Bronze out before nighttime, basically having him done with his driving, which required some monster stints for him and some painkillers for sure, trying to ease the pain on his elbow. And then it was me and Jonny Edgar to do the rest of the race. And I must say it was so, so nice to have Jonny as a teammate because he was incredible. He was incredibly fast, consistently hitting the fuel numbers. I was so impressed with him. He did the end of the race… a big stint to finish. Honestly, having teammates like that, it’s not easy, but it felt really easy this time. We had a fast car, the team did well. So super cool to win Le Mans again.”


Eight of the 12 class winners at Le Mans are actually at Watkins Glen this weekend. Do you think that there’s some benefit by having drivers do IMSA in addition to other programs?

“I think the more you drive as a driver, the better it is. And I feel like it just shows that the GT class and all the classes in IMSA are just super high level. I think it’s very much the same as it is in WEC, and you can kind of swap between championships. If you’re doing really well in IMSA, you should also be doing really well in WEC. So I just feel like at the moment, sports car endurance racing is on such a nice vibe. And I’m so lucky to be able to do both championships and then leading both championships now.

“It’s super cool and hopefully it depends a little bit on what happens in Brazil because I will not be doing Brazil in WEC. So I was joking with the guys… I said make sure you don’t score any points! But maybe if they do we can achieve P1-3 in the championship. Jonny can win, Ben can be P2 and I can be P3. That’s all good.”


Some prototype drivers last week believe Watkins Glen is the most physically demanding circuit on the IMSA schedule because of the high-speed corners and G-forces. What’s your take from a GT perspective?

“I think for those guys that’s more of a point than it is for us. Those cars are going so fast through some of the fast corners that they have so many Gs to endure. It will be tough on the upper body. I think for us that’s a little bit easier. I don’t personally feel that Watkins Glen is way harder than any other track. I personally always find street races like Detroit, for example, very intense, even though they’re lower speed, but having to be so close to the walls all the time makes it very tough.”

 

On having a week off between Le Mans and Watkins Glen instead of back-to-back.

“I am happy to have that week off. Le Mans is always a very long time away from home, so it’s great to be able to recover from that. You don’t sleep a lot during the Le Mans 24 Hours, so I must be honest: I had a couple of daytime naps this week, so it was great not to go to Watkins just yet. So it’s been really nice to have that weekend break.”

 
What part of Watkins Glen rewards experience over raw speed?

“I feel like the experience really counts when it comes to the multi-class thing, dealing with the prototypes. I always like looking at the way Nick Tandy does it. If I speak to some of the prototype guys, they say, ‘Man, it’s actually cool that Nick is now in a GT car.’ He really understands what to do when we are approaching. So I feel like there’s always something to learn and I feel like I’m getting better every year with trying to manage the traffic. It’s a real aspect of the race where you can make a difference as a driver. So some of the inexperienced guys can come in and be super fast, but they can lose out when it comes to traffic management. So I feel especially the guys that have experience overall in the ranges of classes – LMP2, Hypercar GTs – are the ones that usually are the best at that. For example with Nick Tandy, I always travel back with Renger van der Zande and he always tells me, ‘Man, you need to up your game because you’re not as good as Nick yet!.”

 
We touched on how Jonny Edgar did at Le Mans. I know it’s not your call, but the talent is there. Is he a driver you would like to see as part of the Corvette Racing family one day?

“I would say 100 percent. I don’t get to make those calls and I really don’t know what his plans are. There is always room for good drivers. And Jonny, to me, is just one of those young guys that really, really stood out to me. He’s incredibly fast; what’s so funny about him is he seems so smart during the race. He’s fully on top of the strategy as well, kind of thinking along with Tyler (Neff), our engineer on what to do next and what is best. Yeah I feel like he’s a complete package.”

 
Managing traffic against GTP cars especially in high-speed sections.

“In the Carousel, I always feel like I commit to the corner and I know that with this commitment level, I’m gonna need all the track in the exit to make it and to keep the car on track. And sometimes those guys have so much more grip, so much more potential in those high-speed corners, that they just drive around you and they don’t realize that I’m fully on the limit. And it’s very hard to uncommit. It does create situations where it can be so easy to make a mistake because they don’t always realize how much on the limit we are compared to them. So I do feel like every time I race here, there are situations where it goes just right and sometimes it goes just wrong. But it’s definitely a more difficult track to manage the traffic than most others.”

 
Reviewing the finish at Detroit and the late-race penalty.

“So unfortunately, you’re fully right. That Turn Three is kind of becoming my nemesis there with obviously an incident with a Lexus two years ago, then an incident with Lauren Heinrich and now an incident again with a Lexus where I feel like out of those three times, it’s probably been three times mostly down to me. So as much as I hate admitting that, it’s the way it is. I feel like this time, I was definitely trying to make sure that whatever I did, I was never ever going to hit the 3 car because we needed a win in Detroit. Super important for the brand, super important for the team. So I left too much margin. I started coming off the throttle a bit too early because I knew that Antonio (Garcia) was struggling to switch on his front tires at the restart. I could see that, so I tried to give him a little bit of a break. And with doing that, I didn’t realize how close the Lexus was. Unfortunately, the defensive move was purely an instinctive one. As soon as I did it, I was like, ‘Oh my God, why did you do that?’ Because two corners after, I knew I was going to get a penalty. Even though looking back on video, I felt like it looked less bad than I thought it was going to look. I felt like he had plenty of room on the inside. But still, the rule is don’t move under braking. This was a clear moment of me reacting to his overtaking maneuver. I reacted and he hit me and unfortunately, this destroyed our result, which I think should have been an easy 1-2 result, so it happens unfortunately. I need to make sure that it doesn’t happen again, specifically in Turn Three in Detroit.”

 

Talk about the chemistry that you’ve developed with Tommy and why you guys are working so well together.

“Tommy is a super, easygoing teammate. I feel like he never really pushes through his personal wishes. I feel like sometimes he wants the car to work in a certain way, but he would never compromise the overall result. He’s just a teammate that I would always love to have as my teammate. He is very fast, he always brings the car back in one piece, and he’s very easy to find compromises with in terms of setup and run plans. Over the course of the years, we get to know each other better and better. There’s nothing bad to say about Tommy Milner, and I hope I get to work with him for many more years to come.”

 

What part of the Glen’s circuit is most comparable to the general layout over at Le Mans?

“I feel like some of the high-speed corners, let’s say The Carousel… it’s still different than Le Mans, but it reminds me a little bit of the last sector in Le Mans – the Porsche Curves, the high-speed flowy nature of it. But in reality it’s a pretty different track altogether.”

 

Does 24 hours at Le Mans make it a little bit easier to kind of transition into Watkins Glen from a driver mindset?

“I can imagine if most of the season you’re doing sprint races and then all of a sudden you have to do a six-hour race, that would be a bit of a different approach than someone who does a lot more longer endurance races. So I do feel like I’m very lucky to be racing in both championships at the same time. I always believe that the more a driver gets to drive, the better he becomes. So yes, I do feel like it helps me prepare. I’ve just done a lot of long stints in Le Mans. So I’m not too worried for the physicality of doing the longer runs with just two drivers in Watkins. So I do believe it helps me prepare and gives me a little bit of an edge on the drivers that don’t have that luxury. So yeah, to answer your question, I think it does help.”


Ryan Smith