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Fourth, seventh for Corvette C7.Rs in highly-competitive GTLM qualifying session
CORVETTE RACING AT MID-OHIO: Milner Charges to Second-Row Starting Spot
Fourth, seventh for Corvette C7.Rs in highly-competitive GTLM qualifying session
LEXINGTON, Ohio (May 4, 2019) – Corvette Racing will look for more championship points and its 100th IMSA victory Sunday from the second and fourth rows of the GT Le Mans category following qualifying for the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio.
Tommy Milner paced Corvette Racing’s efforts in Saturday’s time trials. He qualified fourth in the No. 4 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C7.R that he shares with Oliver Gavin. The duo are coming off a third-place finish in the team’s most recent race at Long Beach, Calif., in which Corvette Racing scored a double-podium finish.
Milner’s best time Saturday was a 1:19.721 (101.965 mph) lap that put him within 0.597 seconds of the GTLM pole-winning time. Teammate Jan Magnussen was less than 0.3 seconds adrift in the No. 3 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C7.R that qualified seventh. His best time was 1:19.919 (101.712 mph).
Magnussen and Antonio Garcia finished second at Long Beach and were third at year ago at Mid-Ohio to start their push to the eventual GTLM Driver’s Championship – Corvette Racing’s third in a row. On Saturday, Magnussen was one of five GTLM drivers to hold provisional pole position during the session. At one point in a five-minute span, five drivers swapped pole position nine times.
Friday and Saturday was filled with changing weather conditions between warm and dry and downright cold and wet. Saturday afternoon’s qualifying session marked the best conditions of the weekend with things expected to improve for Sunday’s two-hour, 40-minute race.
Corvette Racing has won eight times at Mid-Ohio – the most of any entrant in the series. It also is IMSA’s most successful team with 99 all-time victories.
The Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio begins at 1:40 p.m. ET on Sunday. It will air on live on NBC Sports Network and the NBC Sports app starting at 1:30 p.m. Live audio coverage of practices, qualifying and the race from IMSA Radio is available on IMSA.com.
TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R – QUALIFIED FOURTH IN GTLM: “It seemed like initially we were good. I was P2 for a little while there, but as it went on we fell back a little bit. We missed a little bit on the tire pressures, and the track is in a weird spot with all the rain the last two days, being a little dry this morning and then more rain after our practice. So a lot of it today was feeling it out and trying to figure out where you can go quick and where you can’t. Eighth place didn’t sound good; I cooled my tires for one more shot at it. Honestly, you are being a little careful right now in these conditions in some places. So I threw caution to the wind a little bit. If I went off at Turn Four and braked too late, I was going to be no worse off. In the end, fourth is a good starting spot for our Corvette C7.R. It’s difficult to pass here, so the farther up the grid the better it will be for the race. Now we have to execute on the track and in the pitlane then see where we end up tomorrow.”
JAN MAGNUSSEN, NO. 3 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C7.R – QUALIFIED SEVENTH IN GTLM: “We missed a little bit on the tire pressures, so the pressure was super high at the end. When it mattered, I didn’t have a lot of grip and the car was moving around a lot. But the balance of the Corvette was good. We were just slow because the pressures were so high. That’s how it is… one of those sessions. I’m quite happy with the race car we have for tomorrow. It will be in a spot where we can do something good with it.”
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