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Le Mans / ALMS
IN THE COCKPIT: Oliver Gavin, Petit Le Mans
We’d got a pretty good hold on the GT class lead in Saturday’s final round of the ALMS at Road Atlanta when we saw all our hopes go down the drain...
a broken steering column took the No. 4 Corvette C6.R out of contention in Saturday's Petit Le Mans. (Photo: John Dagys)
Someone, somewhere didn’t want this particular Petit Le Mans to belong to Tommy, Richard and I, although we’d certainly given it our best shot and were looking real strong for a while there.
We’d got a pretty good hold on the GT class lead in Saturday’s final round of the American Le Mans Series at Road Atlanta when we saw all our hopes go down the drain. The steering rack cracked on our No. 4 Corvette C6.R and we lost 27 laps in the pits while it was repaired.
It was a perfect example, as most sports car drivers have experienced at some time or other, of an endurance race biting you when you least expect it. Tommy and I, having wrapped up the Teams and Manufacturers Championship for Corvette Racing plus the Drivers’ title at the last round at VIR, were really hoping we’d be able to notch up a fifth class win and round off our great season is style.
We tested at Road Atlanta early in the week, and were chasing a rear end grip problem for the first part of the week, but by the time we got to qualifying on Friday we knew we were definitely on the right track.
The Extreme Speed Ferraris were a bit too quick for us, boosted this weekend by Toni Vilander in their line up, and the BMWs and Flying Lizard Porsche were threatening to gate-crash the party too. In the end, things went a little better than we thought and we qualified fourth but started third on the grid after one of the Ferraris failed tech.
I managed to make a pretty good start and jumped ahead of the No. 55 BMW into second in the GT class, running behind the No. 01 Extreme Speed Ferrari. It was good racing with Scott Sharp at the start and pretty close, but I managed to get by him after he made a small mistake at turn 6 after being behind him for about 25 laps. I knew I had to pounce on that opportunity and got by and pulled away a little bit.
Both Tommy and Richard Westbrook, our third driver for the endurance races, carried on the great work and by the fifth hour the field had shaken out and things had settled into a rhythm. Just as the six hour mark was about to tick over – in a race which, because of seven full course cautions, lasted 9 hours 37 minutes – Tommy suddenly felt the steering go funny and knew it was something serious.
He brought the car into the pits and the guys looked at it and sent him out again but he returned after one lap and went behind the wall. It quickly became clear that the car would need serious attention in the pits as the rack had, for the first time ever, cracked so the guys set about replacing it.
As always, Brian Hoye and the 4 car crew did an awesome job and got us back out as quick as possible but our race was effectively over. We finished 12th!
It’s been a phenomenal year for Tommy and I, and it’s a shame we couldn’t finish it off with a victory but we competed at the front again as we’ve done all year.
Once we were out of contention we were all rooting for the No. 3 car in the hope that my fellow SPEED.com columnist Jan Magnussen could continue his amazing record of a win in every season of the ALMS. My marathon running buddy Antonio Garcia put up a tremendous fight with the No. 01 Ferrari in the last hour and it was super close right to the finish.
Congratulations to Toni, Scott and Johannes van Overbeek for such great pace and strategy…we were convinced they were going to have to pit again for a splash of fuel but they nailed it.
There was a lot of promise at Petit Le Mans. We really had a good car to fight with, but unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be. The No. 4 will live to fight another Petit Le Mans in 2013 and we all can’t wait for the season to start. See you at Sebring!
~Olly
A former British F3 Champion and Formula One test driver, Oliver Gavin has raced in North America for the last decade for Corvette Racing, representing General Motors. He has achieved three American Le Mans Series GT1 Championship titles and four GT1 class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and in 2012 will also be racing in select races with Spirit of Daytona in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series.
For more information, visit: www.olivergavin.com, Facebook Oliver Gavin, or Twitter @OliverGavin
We’d got a pretty good hold on the GT class lead in Saturday’s final round of the American Le Mans Series at Road Atlanta when we saw all our hopes go down the drain. The steering rack cracked on our No. 4 Corvette C6.R and we lost 27 laps in the pits while it was repaired.
It was a perfect example, as most sports car drivers have experienced at some time or other, of an endurance race biting you when you least expect it. Tommy and I, having wrapped up the Teams and Manufacturers Championship for Corvette Racing plus the Drivers’ title at the last round at VIR, were really hoping we’d be able to notch up a fifth class win and round off our great season is style.
We tested at Road Atlanta early in the week, and were chasing a rear end grip problem for the first part of the week, but by the time we got to qualifying on Friday we knew we were definitely on the right track.
The Extreme Speed Ferraris were a bit too quick for us, boosted this weekend by Toni Vilander in their line up, and the BMWs and Flying Lizard Porsche were threatening to gate-crash the party too. In the end, things went a little better than we thought and we qualified fourth but started third on the grid after one of the Ferraris failed tech.
I managed to make a pretty good start and jumped ahead of the No. 55 BMW into second in the GT class, running behind the No. 01 Extreme Speed Ferrari. It was good racing with Scott Sharp at the start and pretty close, but I managed to get by him after he made a small mistake at turn 6 after being behind him for about 25 laps. I knew I had to pounce on that opportunity and got by and pulled away a little bit.
Both Tommy and Richard Westbrook, our third driver for the endurance races, carried on the great work and by the fifth hour the field had shaken out and things had settled into a rhythm. Just as the six hour mark was about to tick over – in a race which, because of seven full course cautions, lasted 9 hours 37 minutes – Tommy suddenly felt the steering go funny and knew it was something serious.
He brought the car into the pits and the guys looked at it and sent him out again but he returned after one lap and went behind the wall. It quickly became clear that the car would need serious attention in the pits as the rack had, for the first time ever, cracked so the guys set about replacing it.
As always, Brian Hoye and the 4 car crew did an awesome job and got us back out as quick as possible but our race was effectively over. We finished 12th!
It’s been a phenomenal year for Tommy and I, and it’s a shame we couldn’t finish it off with a victory but we competed at the front again as we’ve done all year.
Once we were out of contention we were all rooting for the No. 3 car in the hope that my fellow SPEED.com columnist Jan Magnussen could continue his amazing record of a win in every season of the ALMS. My marathon running buddy Antonio Garcia put up a tremendous fight with the No. 01 Ferrari in the last hour and it was super close right to the finish.
Congratulations to Toni, Scott and Johannes van Overbeek for such great pace and strategy…we were convinced they were going to have to pit again for a splash of fuel but they nailed it.
There was a lot of promise at Petit Le Mans. We really had a good car to fight with, but unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be. The No. 4 will live to fight another Petit Le Mans in 2013 and we all can’t wait for the season to start. See you at Sebring!
~Olly
A former British F3 Champion and Formula One test driver, Oliver Gavin has raced in North America for the last decade for Corvette Racing, representing General Motors. He has achieved three American Le Mans Series GT1 Championship titles and four GT1 class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and in 2012 will also be racing in select races with Spirit of Daytona in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series.
For more information, visit: www.olivergavin.com, Facebook Oliver Gavin, or Twitter @OliverGavin
Monterey
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