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Our man, Chris Draper, was at Laguna this past weekend. The following is his story —
Laguna Seca never has lack of action. This year’s race was no exception. Friday’s qualifying saw a bit of a shock when Aston Martin showed their true hand and posted a 1:22.229 for pole position. Tommy Milner in the #4 Corvette took 2nd at 1:22.661, and Jan Magnussen posted a 1:22.919 on his 8th lap, 4 more then the #4 car.
Race day was a test of will power. Aston Martin in the opening laps showed they had the speed and started pulling away from the rest of the GT pack until the first full coarse caution really shook things up. AMR had a fuel fill issue that shook them from 1st to 5th. Our badboys capitalized and the #4 Corvette took the lead.
Throughout the 6hr battle, there were 5 or more GT cars absolutely nose to tale lap after lap. It could have been anyone’s race, but mistakes were seen from all teams. The #4 Corvette saw a fuel fill issue that took them from their healthy lead down to 5th. The BMWs experimented with some different tire compounds early on and guessed wrong and after a full stint nearly cost both cars a lap. The #45 Porsche had the pace, but penalties cost them the race.
Ultimately, it came down to Corvette vs BMW once again. Milner and Gavin fought back with the Take No Prisoners attitude and got back into the lead and made it count. The #3 Corvette got passed by the #56 BMW after a caution restart, but Magnussen fought back hard and made the move of the race.
During Magnussen’s maneuver, he flat spotted the tires. With about 8 minutes left the BMW was biting back inch by inch each lap. The injured Michelins held in just long enough and on the final corner of the final lap the BMW got a little too hard on the gas, fishtaled out of the corner, and the cheers for the Corvette Racing camp could nearly be heard over the sound of the thundering V8s crossing the finish in a 1-2 style victory. Click HERE to watch the podium presentation.
Click HERE to relive the last 20 minutes of the race.
Our badboys truly took no prisoners. They didn’t even leave a crumb on the table, and took home some hardware for a new centerpiece.
These smiles should last at least until Le Mans next month where hopefully they car pull off a duplicate result.
Chris has posted all of his pics over at Corvette Info Center for Friday and Saturday, including some post race pics from the Corvette Racing garage.
Great work Chris.
http://badboyvettes.com:80/692
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