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| 2016 Long Beach: Race Results | |
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|  | | April 17 2016 09:28:38 PM EST | Michelin Alley |
| Coming off winning 36hrs of racing in Florida, Corvette Racing heads to Long Beach for the shortest race of the year.
The Corvettes would start 4th and 5th behind a BMW and both Porsches. Only one second covered the entire GTLM field in qualifying.
Photo by Team Chevy
After only 25 minutes, Gavin made an early pit stop due to a tire going down. This put the #4 car on the different strategy and they would have to conserve fuel all the way to the end in order to not have to come in a second time.
After everyone else made their pit stops both Porsches received penalties for speeding in pit lane. The leading BMW also received a penalty for taking out an LMPC car. This now put the two Corvettes 1-2 in the GTLM class.
Photo by Team Chevy
With the rest of the GTLM field either having issues, or battling back from penalties, it was looking good for a possible 1-2 Corvette finish.
With 8 minutes to go, Garcia in the #3 spun on his own with the Porsche duo putting pressure on him lap after lap. Garcia later took to Twitter to say "All I said was sorry. That's what happens when you run 18.5's on a 19.0 car." Unfortunately the #3 was not able to finish the race.
Photo by Fox Sports
THE MUGGING
As the clock was ticking down to the final minutes of the race, Tommy Milner in the #4 Corvette C7.R was leading the race with both Porsche North America team cars on the charge. The Corvette was clearly the slower car, but that does not mean you just give up and let your opponent pass. You fight to the end and do everything in your ability, within the rules, to make life difficult for the cars behind to make the pass. The Porsches were clearly getting anxious. Coming up to the final corner of the penultimate lap of the race, Fred Makowiecki in the #912 Porsche made a dive-bomb move that had a 0% chance of working, in an attempt to make a pass
VIDEO: #912 Assaults #4 Corvette
This dirty piece of "driving" handed the #911 Porsche the win, with the #4 Corvette able to recover and take P2. The #912 did not continue due to the self inflicted damage.
Was it intentional, probably but we will never know for sure. One thing is for sure, it was a disgusting piece of driving.
The only consequence was IMSA handed the #912 a drive threw penalty, but with 1 lap to go and the car unable to finish, it didn't much matter.
Photo by Team Chevy
TOMMY MILNER
“It was fairly well under control until I had a wiggle apparently. But that wiggle was tiny. I just got wrecked basically. Two Porsches running nose to tail… it is pretty clear what happened there. It is pretty disappointing that this is the kind of racing we have here where we are better than that for sure. At the end of the day, it could have been worse for us for sure. Second place is obviously great points. Oliver was unlucky there with the puncture (tire) and it was looking pretty bleak for us for a little bit there. But with the yellow, and we were at the right spot there at the end. There were very difficult conditions there after the yellow flag I was locking fronts all over the place and then the tires came back and they were good. Then with three to go, just taken out. It’s disappointing but certainly could have been a lot worse. I don’t mind finishing second if it is clean and it happens the right way, but that wasn’t the right way. It hurts a little bit to be second in this case the way it happened, but again, end of the day second place is great points for us. We can hold our heads high that we raced as hard as we could today, the right way.”
OLIVER GAVIN
“When you look back on today at the end of the year, we would hope that this was one where we ended up getting a good result from it. Yes, we felt like we got robbed of the victory. But with the puncture we had early-on and the pit stop, Tommy having to save fuel, the tires only lasting for so long… for us to come away with second place is a very good result. If you had asked us after the pit stop or told us we were going to finish second, yes we would definitely taken that. It is a little hard to swallow right now. We felt like we were going to win and we were robbed of that.”
ANTONIO GARCIA
“It was not the outcome we expected. We played our strategy very smart. With the pace we had early, we showed that we had to do something. We didn’t have the fastest car but we were – up until the yellow – first and second. For sure the first yellow helped the 4 car stay in the lead. The Porsches were very fast. If I wanted to stay ahead of them, I needed to have the best drive of my career. There was a lot of pressure from them. Maybe there were some taps but nothing special. Then a mistake happened. I can’t say I felt contact. We probably need to view the replay but I was driving the whole race on the limit. That’s what happens on a street circuit sometimes. It can bite you at some point. I wasn’t going to be happy to finish second, so I was doing all I could to try to win the race.”
JAN MAGNUSSEN
“My stint itself was pretty uneventful. I wasn’t really in a position to attack anybody. We started getting messed up in traffic and lost a lot of ground to the guys in front. I tried to take care of things, but it was difficult. We did a bunch of laps in qualifying, so we were starting to lose a lot of performance in the tire. I was just taking care of things.”
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