World news – Qualifying with GTD « stressful » says GTLM pole winner Garcia

Reigning IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar GTLM Champion beat teammate Tommy Milner on pole by just 0.034 seconds when the Corvette C8.Rs closed the front row.

This year, GT Daytona class cars have two Qualification dates: The first one is driven with drivers with a silver or bronze rating at the wheel and determines the starting grid for the race. The second scores points and shows the drivers with platinum and gold ratings, but sees them on the track with the GTLM class vehicles.

Given the 3.74 mile length of Sebring, even with the fastest With drivers behind the wheel, a GTD car drives more than 4 seconds per lap slower and with up to 13 GTD entries on the track, the five GTLM cars. the Corvettes, the BMW M8 and the Porsche 911 RSR â ???? can easily run into traffic that is not ready to relinquish their position as they are also on flying laps.

« It was very stressful! » said a relieved Garcia afterwards. We’re not used to qualifying together with the GTD cars, so it was very difficult for us at first to judge how much space we had to fall back in order not to catch them. It seemed like we would still catch them no matter how much we got back.

I knew Tommy was coming after me so I couldn’t open a gap. I didn’t mean to disturb him. The first attempt was really bad. The second one that I thought I had enough gap but had to dive into Turn 17 for a pass. I knew it was a good lap so I had to go for it.

I’m really happy for Corvette. It’s always good to have Corvette Racing 1-2, even if it’s a long race. Let’s see if we can keep those positions like we did at Daytona.

The Rolex 24 winner added, “We’re just used to qualifying on our own so we have to get used to it. For the first race it was a bit of a shock for us because we didn’t know how to get on the track so as not to disturb them and not to disturb us. That’s the key.

« You have 12-13 cars in this category, so it’s always difficult at Sebring anyway. » When it comes to shorter races, I don’t know what’s going to happen. Sebring has come a long way. I think we all have more or less a clean lap, but it was definitely stressful. “????

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