C6R Corvette Racing

SIXTH LE MANS VICTORY

AFTER 8 STRAIGHT CHAMPIONSHIPS, A NEW CHALLENGE

For the Corvette Racing Pratt & Miller team, 2009 was a year of transition. The Corvettes competed in the GT1 class in the season-opening Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring and the Grand Prix of Long Beach, in preparation for their 10th participation in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The team’s new driver lineup included Antonio Garcia, who joined defending ALMS GT1 champions Johnny O’Connell and Jan Magnussen in the No. 3 Compuware Corvette C6.R for the Sebring 12-hour, Le Mans 24-hour, and 1000-mile Petit Le Mans endurance races. Marcel Fassler teamed with 2005-07 GT1 champions Oliver Gavin and Olivier Beretta in the No. 4 Compuware Corvette C6.R for the three long-distance races.

After victories in Sebring and Long Beach, the team scored a hard-earned sixth victory in its 10th trip to Le Mans, then moved to the GT2 category for a five-race test and development program. This was in preparation for an all-out assault on the American Le Mans Series’ unified GT class championship in 2010.

“We’re not running for a championship this year, so we’re looking at the upcoming races as preparation for 2010,” said Gary Pratt. “Our only testing from this point on will be at the races, and we’ll be doing it in the public eye. Certainly we hope to achieve the same level of success that we did in GT1, but the caliber of the competition we will face in GT2 is very high.”

It was a speedy transition, as Corvette Racing posted five podium finishes and notched its first GT2 win at Mosport International Raceway. In the series’ final five races, Corvette Racing scored more team and manufacturer points than any other GT2 entry, and drivers Johnny O’Connell and Jan Magnussen tallied the most points in
the GT2 drivers championship.

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