Press Release:

CORVETTE RACING AT MONZA: Title Within Reach

After Le Mans win, No. 33 C8.R team can wrap up GTE Am championships


DETROIT (July 3, 2023) – Fresh off a stunning class victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans – its ninth since 2001 – Corvette Racing can add one more major honor this weekend with the resumption of the FIA World Endurance Championship.


Depending on its finish and those of other title contenders, Corvette Racing can wrap up the GTE Am Drivers and Teams championships at the Six Hours of Spa. Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating, Nico Varrone and the team of the No. 33 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R have won three of the first four WEC rounds to open a commanding 74-point advantage with 91 possible points remaining in the final three races of the season.


Corvette Racing media information is updated and available ahead of the FIA WEC's Six Hours of Monza.

Such a position likely was incredibly optimistic for even the biggest Corvette Racing fan before the season began. Not only is this season the first for the Catsburg/Keating/Varrone trio, but it also is the in GTE Am for Corvette Racing. The new challenge hasn’t been too big for the team, which largely has nailed every pit stop and strategy call during this year’s campaign.


That was part of the story last year at Monza for the Corvette squad, which won in its debut at the circuit in the GTE Pro class. Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy were winners that day in the C8.R on a strategic masterpiece by the Corvette squad.


The team will need to rely on some of that quick and clever thinking this time around as the Corvette will carry 40 additional kilograms of “success ballast” in accordance with GTE Am sporting rules. That is due to the victory in the previous race at Le Mans, 10 kilograms for taking the runner-up spot at Spa (the race prior to Le Mans) and another 15 for leading the championship.


On a positive note, the No. 33 C8.R raced at Spa with 45 extra kilograms over its minimum weight and placed second, highlighted by a furious late-race defense by Catsburg to hold on to the second position.
 

The Six Hours of Monza is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. CET / 6:30 a.m. ET on Sunday, July 9. MotorTrend and MotorTrend Plus will provide both live television and streaming coverage, as will the FIA WEC app. Radio Le Mans will stream audio coverage of qualifying and the race.


NICKY CATSBURG, NO. 33 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: "Coming into the season, we were confident that we could compete for race wins and the championship. We knew we had a good team and a good car. But I couldn't have expected the success we have had so far with three wins - Le Mans among that - and a chance to win the championship this early. Even though we are in this position, we cannot take anything for granted or lose focus. Fortunately I have teammates in Ben and Nico and a team behind us in Corvette Racing that won't let that happen. Monza is a very good and fast track. We may be a little limited by the success ballast but it will not change our approach and mindset. I'm ready to get there and go for the best result we can get."


BEN KEATING, NO. 33 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “I love Monza. On the WEC calendar, Le Mans and Monza are my best tracks. Interestingly enough in my first year at Monza in WEC, I rented a bicycle and was riding around. On the grandstand side, there is a driver development simulator company. I spent four or five hours there on a whim. At the time, my chief competitor was a Ferrari with Alessio Rivera, and in the sim he was my coach! So every year since then, I always book time. Monza is one of my best tracks, but I’ve yet to finish a race there. It’s been my unluckiest track. One year we had a blowout at 170 mph, and it blew apart the car so much that it bent the exhaust, blew the floor out and blew the hood off. Then last year, we lost brakes and flipped the car. Even though I feel really good about my performance at Monza, the track has not always loved me back. I have a lot of faith in the Corvette and the Corvette Racing team. I really feel like in this season, the team’s performance has been key to our results. This race will be no different. We’ll be carrying 40 extra kilograms for the race, but the other teams chasing us have weight, too. I’m hopeful we can clinch a championship there. It doesn’t require a podium finish but does require some points for us and the 25 and 85 cars having a bad race. With the 40 extra kilograms, it would be a lot to expect us to win. I’m not saying it’s impossible because anything is possible with this car and this team.”


NICO VARRONE, NO. 33 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “I love Monza! It’s a fast track with a lot of history. We have been doing a great job all year. I feel like the pressure from ahead of Le Mans is gone with the victory there. We will arrive at Monza with less pressure and I think enjoying the moment. We will do what we do every race – do what we do, do what we know, keep it clean, be as fast as we can and get the pit stops and strategy right. Everything will come to us after that. If we are champions in Monza, then great. But we are not going in with that mindset. We are going to do our best and trying to win.”


2023 FIA World Endurance Championship – GTE Am (After four of seven events)

Driver Standings

1. Ben Keating/Nicky Catsburg/Nico Varrone – 133

2. Ahmad Al Harthy/Charlie Eastwood/Michael Dinan – 59

3. Michelle Gatting/Rahel Frey/Sarah Bovy – 56

4. Francesco Castellacci/Thomas Flohr/Davide Rigon – 47

5. Alessio Rovera/Lilou Wadoux/Luis Perez Companc – 43



Team Standings

1. No. 33 Corvette Racing – 133

2. No. 25 ORT by TF – 59

3. No. 85 Iron Dames – 56

4. No. 54 AF Corse – 47

5. No 83 Richard Mille AF Corse – 43



CORVETTE RACING AT CTMP & MONZA: 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

• 3: Generations of Corvette Racing entries at CTMP since 2000 – Corvette C5-R (2004), Corvette C6.R (2005-13) and Corvette C7.R (2016-2019). The Corvette C8.R raced at the track for the first time last season.

• 3: Number of GTE Am wins in four FIA WEC races this season for Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating and Nico Varrone with the No. 33 Corvette C8.R.

• 6: Hours difference between the IMSA team competing at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and the Corvette Racing WEC team competing at Monza on the same days.

• 7: Number of drivers who have won races at CTMP for Corvette Racing. Johnny O’Connell (six), Jan Magnussen (five), Oliver Gavin (four), Ron Fellows (three) and Olivier Beretta (two) each have multiple wins there with the team.

• 7: Pole positions for Corvette Racing drivers at CTMP. Oliver Gavin leads with three with Antonio Garcia (2016) being the most recent.

• 11: Class victories at Corvette Racing at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park – all since 2001.

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

• 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.

• 125: Victories worldwide for Corvette Racing – 113 in North America, nine at Le Mans – including two weeks ago – and three in the FIA WEC.

• 275: Event starts by Corvette Racing since 1999.

• 11,080.25: Number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing in its 20 previous trips to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. That represents 4,506 laps.

• 358,144.93: 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 then some!


Corvette Racing at Monza (wins in bold)

2022

No. 64 Corvette C8.R: Tommy Milner/Nick Tandy – 1st in GTE Pro



Ryan Smith
Judy Kouba Dominick

Press Release

CORVETTE RACING AT CTMP: Jordan Taylor Zoom Transcript

Media Q&A ahead of Chevrolet Grand Prix and team’s lone Canadian stop


Corvette Racing’s Jordan Taylor was part of a media Zoom today to talk about next week’s Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park and the sixth round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. He will team with Antonio Garcia in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R, which raced at CTMP for the first time a year ago. The duo finished third in the GTD PRO class last weekend at the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen


JORDAN TAYLOR, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R

ON THE FOLLOWING AND SUPPORT OF CORVETTE RACING AT CANADIAN TIRE MOTORSPORT PARK.

“It’s always a big weekend for us. Obviously being the Chevrolet Grand Prix, there’s a lot of Chevy supporters and Corvette supporters. The Corvette Corral that we have there every year is massive. It’s always exciting for us. Corvette Racing has 11 wins there over the year with the last one being in 2014. So we’re due for another win there. It’s been awhile, and last year we finished second. I feel like this year we’re a little bit stronger compared to this time last year when we first entered GTD PRO. This past weekend was a little bit of a struggle at Watkins Glen, but I don’t see why we can’t be a little bit closer to the front next weekend. It’s a big weekend for Corvette and Chevrolet every year we go there, and they are true sports car fans when we go north of the border.”


DOES THE MOVE TO CORVETTE RACING BY PRATT MILLER MOTORSPORTS FOR NEXT YEAR IN GT3 CHANGE ANYTHING FOR YOU AS A DRIVER?

“We kind of knew this was coming over the past year or two with the class going to GT3 and a customer-based program. Our history has always been in the GTLM and GTE classes, so with it going to GT3 it makes sense to rename it how they did. For me, it doesn’t change a whole lot. It’s still run by Pratt Miller. Corvette Racing always had Pratt Miller behind the scenes running the program from their shop in Michigan. Now it’s all going to be the same guys running the program. We deal with the same exact people on the management and contract side, so from the drivers perspective it changes nothing. The only thing that changes for us as Corvette drivers is that there will be more Corvettes on the track that we have to race with. It’s going to be interesting to see how it is. Obviously it makes it trickier when there are more cars on track in your class of car. But I think it’s great for the brand. There are so many Corvette fans in sports car racing worldwide that now going to this GT3 platform, we can see them racing at Le Mans, Nürburgring, Bathurst, Spa… it’s available to go anywhere now. For me, that’s super exciting to see. Obviously we’ve been locked down to IMSA and WEC the last few years. But with this new class for us, it opens things up a lot for drivers. I’m not sure what it holds for us as drivers, but for sure it would be cool to mix in some of these other races. You see other manufactures have their drivers going to Bathurst around Daytona time, Nürburgring around Le Mans time and Spa coming up this weekend. It would be cool to add some of those races to our calendar. I know a lot of guys in the Corvette stable are looking forward to that.”


HOW TOUGH IS TO TURN REALLY FAST LAPS AT A TRACK LIKE THIS THAT IS SO DAUNTING?

“It’s a place where you need a lot of confidence in yourself and in your car. If you’re lacking any of that, it’s definitely going to show up at a place like this. It’s nice that it’s in the middle of the season. I’d say that if this was the first race of the year when you’re getting back in the swing of things, it would be quite a shock to the system to get up to speed there. It’s always nice to have it back-to-back with Watkins Glen where you’ve come from a high-speed track, you’ve done six hours in your car and you kind of know the limits of it so when you get to CTMP, you’re mostly ready to go. It’s a high-risk, high-reward type of place especially when it comes to traffic. Having driven there in prototypes and now GT cars, you kind of see the perspective from both sides and see how much you can gain or lose in those situations. That definitely ramps up the intensity, especially the last hour of the race when guys don’t want to wait around. I’m sure it will be another classic IMSA fight all race long.”


THERE ARE SIX RACES STILL TO GO. WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO IN ORDER TO TRACK DOWN THE 14?

“We’ve had a pretty good year. Other than Sebring when we got knocked off the track and our penalty at Laguna Seca, it’s been a pretty flawless season. At Daytona, we had a flawless race and finished second. At Long Beach, we had a good fight and had the third-fastest car and finished second. This weekend (at Watkins Glen), we had the fifth-fastest car and finished third. I feel like we are kind nailing our races pretty really and calling super-strong strategies. Our guys in the pits have been doing an unbelievable job on pit stops to jump guys when we can. Everything is going well – we just need to tick that last little box. Hopefully this weekend we can get it done.”


WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE SPEED DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE GTP CARS TO THE GTD CARS WILL BE LIKE?

“It’s made it a little tricker in traffic to understand the capabilities of the GTP cars. We’re still used to DPis coming by us, and they used to fly by us in a lot of spots. You can tell guys are a little more hesitant with some of their moves especially with their tire allocation now; if they’re double-stinting their tires, they can be quite slow in some of the corners. At Sebring in some of the medium-speed corners, they’d be slower than us if we were on new tires. I’m not sure what their allocation is for next week for race stints, but I’d say if they are on a second stint on tires, they’ll struggle to get by us in some spots where they usually fly by us. It’s something for sure to think about and learn. It’s definitely a new challenge to figure out where they can pass you and where you need to defend. You can tell when they’re getting frustrated or they know certain spots where they need to get by or else they’re going to get stuck is where they start getting aggressive because they don’t want to wait around either. Understanding that is a big part of it so hopefully we’ll have a good amount of practice to get an understanding.”


WITH THE DYNAMICS BETWEEN GTP AND GTD PRO, IS THERE MORE PRESSURE RACING FOR WINS AND CHAMPIONSHIPS BECAUSE THE PERFORMANCE DIFFERENCES ARE UNDERSTOOD?

“For us, we haven’t won since Sebring 2022. If there are any openings to get a win, we’re definitely going to pounce at it. At the same time, we’re still racing for a championship and there is still a long way to go. If we have a third-place car, we need to finish second or third and not take a risk to finish fifth. Our race is against the Lexus at this point, so we might strategize a little bit around those guys to maybe make some moves.”


IS THERE A PART OF THE TRACK THAT’S HARD TO GET RIGHT EVERY TIME, AND IS THERE A FAVORITE SECTION?

“Turn Three. There’s also a bump on entry which makes it tricky to have a lot of confidence to attack. I’d say the best part about it is the flow between Turn One and Turn Two. It’s an amazing sequence of corners with blind entries and lots of elevation change. The fans in general at CTMP are also always special. I can’t remember what year – maybe 2017 or 2018 – but I went out to Turn Three and Turn Four to watch and the fans that camp there just love sports car racing. Not all tracks have authentic fans like that, so it’s always cool to see fans who have been going back since back in the day when old-school drivers and old-school cars were racing around there.”


About Chevrolet
Founded in 1911 in Detroit, Chevrolet is now one of the world's largest car brands, available in nearly 80 countries with nearly 2.7 million cars and trucks sold in 2021. Chevrolet models include electric and fuel-efficient vehicles that feature engaging performance, design that makes the heart beat, passive and active safety features and easy-to-use technology, all at a value. More information on Chevrolet models can be found at www.chevrolet.com.

Ryan Smith
Judy Kouba Dominick