Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner will be heading to Shanghai in China in three weeks’ time.
The two drivers have been chosen by Corvette Racing for their participation in the FIA World Endurance Championship race at Shanghai International Circuit onboard the Redline/Mobil 1 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R #64. They won’t be racing in the traditional yellow Corvette colours, but grey and red, which match the colours of Redline.
The race will only be a on-off for Corvette in the FIA WEC, other than Le Mans of course, since the the Asian importer of General Motors, that will support this entry.
The team entered at COTA back in 2014 at the FIA WEC round, but has otherwise solely been racing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, under the FIA WEC banner.
Both the FIA WEC and IMSA will race on the same weekend at Sebring, so it’s not impossible that Corvette Racing will also enter a car for that round, since they are present on the track anyway. That will however only be, if it doesn’t take away focus from their main target, which still will be the IMSA programme, only to take part in a FIA WEC round.
Photo: JJ Media
The FIA WEC has been trying to get Corvette Racing to enter the full series for many years, and not just Le Mans only, trying to steal focus and trophies away from the regular teams. We are slowly getting to only 12 vacant spots for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, since the FIA WEC and all the auto-entries from the ELMS, Asian LMS and IMSA will take up 48 of the spots. So there is a big fight for the remaining spots, and it’s getting harder and hard for the ACO to invite two cars from a team who doesn’t support ACO racing during the rest of the year. So we are hopefully going towards a FIA WEC programme.
Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner know each other very well, since they are one of the regular pairings in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, where they finished third in 2018, while teammates Jan Magnussen and Antonio Garcia won the Championship.
Corvette Racing hasn’t had too much success so far in the FIA WEC, since the series started in 2012. A total of three podium places, including a win in 2015 for Gavin/Milner plus Jordan Taylor. The two other podiums have been Garcia/Magnussen and Jordan Taylor.
Perhaps they should have called Taylor, if they want to be on the podium in China…
The FIA World Endurance Championship round in China will be run on 18 November.
