The Vette Barn - 50 years of Corvette Racing at Le Mans

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50 years of Corvette Racing at Le Mans

The Jake racers celebrated 50 years of Corvette Racing at Le Mans with the pole #64 and second #63 for this weekend 24hrs at La Mans. :hurray:

Risi Ferrari failed post qualifying inspection giving the pole to the Vettes.b:toetap:

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Originally Posted by leec4ce (Post 38658)

Risi Ferrari failed post qualifying inspection giving the pole to the Vettes.b:toetap:

And the problem with that is? :leaving:

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Originally Posted by zz4vetteguy (Post 38763)

And the problem with that is? :leaving:

Nothing, unless you are a Ferrari fan.

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Originally Posted by PortDawg (Post 38768)

Nothing, unless you are a Ferrari fan.

Have you met Lee? :lolsmile:

...And both GT2 Vettes are out of the race. :(

Quote:

CORVETTE RACING'S LE MANS ENDS WITH NO. 64 CORVETTE RETIREMENT
Mechanical Problem Sidelines Gavin at 18 Hours

2010-06-13

Corvette Racing's bid for its first GT2 title in the 24 Hours of Le Mans ended this morning at 9:42 a.m. when the No. 64 Corvette C6.R retired with an apparent engine problem. Driver Oliver Gavin nursed the car to a marshal's station at Mulsanne corner, where it was pushed behind the barriers and officially retired.

"The guys fixed the car brilliantly after the crash, and I was able to run my fastest lap of the race with a rebuilt car," Gavin said. "The Corvette Racing team is fantastic, and I literally trust them with my life. I'm impressed with their spirit, guts, and determination to take on everybody. We had the fastest car for 18 hours, but unfortunately it wasn't enough.

"It's frustrating that we get so far into it, we prove that we have the speed and the pace to win the race, and then a crazy move by one of the Peugeot drivers forced Manu off the road at a very dangerous spot," said Gavin. "Everybody has to share the track; we are racing four different classes, and every driver has to have respect for the others. That accident was huge, but it shows the strength of the car that Manu was able to drive back to the pits and climb out without an injury."

After six wins in the GTS/GT1 class at Le Mans, Corvette Racing was bidding for its first GT2 title in the world's most famous sports car race. The Corvettes qualified 1-2 and dominated the race until a series of mishaps took them out of the running.

"There are different ways to make history, and today's result certainly wasn't what we set out to accomplish," said Corvette Racing program manager Doug Fehan. "At the end of the day, you have to look at what you did accomplish and the goals that you had set.

"The Corvettes qualifying first and second in an extremely competitive class validated all of the time spent designing and developing the GT2 Corvette C6.R," he noted. "Second, we demonstrated the value of safety engineering being transferred from production to racing. The No. 63 Corvette had a huge impact, but Emmanuel walked away and is feeling fine. That's a testament to the product relevance of the Corvette Racing program.

"So now we go back, we work harder, we improve ourselves, and we look forward to coming back next to achieve our goal of winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans," Fehan said. "We never give up at Corvette Racing."

Corvette Racing's next event is the American Le Mans Series Larry H. Miller Dealerships Utah Grand Prix at Miller Motorsports Park near Salt Lake City. The 2-hour, 45-minute race will begin at 2:35 p.m. MT on Sunday, July 11, and will be televised live on SPEED at 4:30 p.m. ET

Corvette Racing has not had an engine failure in the past 11 years at Lemans. This year they have both engines fail.

Let see prior to this they had Katech engines. This year the have GM engines.

No answer for the why #63 vette engine failure. The #64 lost most of her oil when the oil tank was hit during the accident which may have hurt the motor on the drive back to the pits.

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Originally Posted by zz4vetteguy (Post 38805)

Have you met Lee? :lolsmile:

Corvette my first love my friend. But there is something to be said when you race with a Ferrari Team :above:

Update from Pratt and Miller: Fuel used burnt hole in a piston on both motors.

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Originally Posted by leec4ce (Post 38897)

update from pratt and miller: Fuel used burnt hole in a piston on both motors.

both?

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Originally Posted by leec4ce (Post 38897)

Update from Pratt and Miller: Fuel used burnt hole in a piston on both motors.

I did not think it was an oil loss issue. As I posted on another forum, the team has too much telemetry on the engine and drive train to not know that they were hurting the engine by have it driven back to the garage. If they show oil pressure dropping, they would have had the driver park it on track and not do any further damage to the motor. They sure would not have sent Ollie back out and run the times he did id the engine had be compromised.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TR6speed (Post 38935)

Your right not oil issue. Pratt and Miller stated both engines failed do to burnt piston.

It was a beautiful sight to see the Corvette's running P1 & P2 for so long. And I was quite impressed on how world feed showed so much of the C6R's!! It was quite a disappointment to see both of them with DNQ's. But on the flip side of this it showed that they can run with the rest of those GT2 cars!! Looking forward to possibly going to Mid-Ohio or Petit Le Mans(which ever one I can afford to goto:lol:)

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Originally Posted by Z51 Silver Surfer (Post 39081)

I was not worry about the way they would run at LeMans. I knew they would have the top speed in GT2 because of the long straights over there. It will be a real fight back here in the remaining season, the only track that has any long straights is Road America. The other tracks have at least one long straight, but a lot of twisty bits and that is where Porsche, Ferrari and the BMW's work the best. It will be interesting to see How CR does with the remaining races.