There are significant changes to Corvette Racing ahead of the 2021 season.
It was announced, a few months ago, that Oliver Gavin would no longer be part of the Corvette Racing team after the 2020 season, and that has resulted in not only one but two changes to the otherwise stable line-up.
#4 will be raced by Tommy Milner once again in 2021, with American driver staying at the American team. With one British driver ending his career, another Brit is stepping in. Corvette Racing has signed Nick Tandy, who will switch from Porsche to the yellow and grey outfit. Porsche has ended their GTLM programme, and that made a switch possible for Tandy. Neither Porsche nor Tandy himself has commented on the news, so it’s not clear if he is on loan or if it’s a full breakup with Porsche. He might just be on loan, as long as he doesn’t race against any Porsche cars.
There will be a second Brit in the car, for the endurance rounds of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Alexander Sims will be helping out Tandy and Milner. Sims was a BMW factory driver until recently, and has raced IMSA in previous seasons. Formula E is his primary job for 2021, but he will jump in the C8.R for Daytona 24 hours, Sebring 12 Hours and Petit Le Mans 10 hours.
So the team says goodbye to Marcel Fässler, who has been the third driver on the 4 for the last few seasons. His contract ran out at the end of 2020, so the team will focus on new and younger drivers.
Photo Courtesy of IMSA / Michael L. Levitt
While there is a lot of changes in #4, the #3 will continue unchanged in 2021. Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor will be the full season pairing, while Nicky Catsburg joins them at the three endurance rounds.
This will be the second season for the C8.R model. It had a few new-car troubles at Daytona, but came back very strong at the second round of the year, winning the race. They claimed even more victories and podiums for the rest of the season, culminating in Garcia and Taylor winning the GTLM title even before the season finale.
The announcements today don’t bring any information regarding the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Corvette Racing opted to skip that race in 2020 with COVID-19 being the reason. Traditionally, they don’t announce their Le Mans line-up anyway until springtime – about the time, when the entry list for the race is revealed.
