TF Sport and AWA to be involved in Corvette Z06 GT3.R test work – Pratt & Miller taking no risks in transition to customer service provider
It’s a profound change at Pratt & Miller: the former factory team, known worldwide as “Corvette Racing”, is about to become a service provider. The new Corvette Z06 GT3.R based on the C8 model will become a customer sports project. However, Corvette Racing will still remain active in IMSA.
That’s why Corvette Racing is taking a new approach to testing the muscle car and directly involving the customer teams. While it is now common practice to have customers test a car before its official debut (think of the racing of the new Audi and Porsche GT3 cars), actively involving customers directly in the testing work during development is a new approach.
TF Sport, the selected Corvette team for the LMGT3 class in the World Endurance Championship (WEC), recently tested the Corvette at the Circuit of the Americas. The circuit was booked by Chip Ganassi Racing.
Tom Ferrier’s team has previously been closely associated with Aston Martin, but is switching brands for the WEC. The reason for this is that Aston is not represented in the hypercar category and TF Sport wanted a guarantee that it could continue to compete in the WEC. Although the team is also active in LMP2, this class disappears from the WEC after 2023.
However, it is not impossible that TF Sport will continue with Aston Martin outside the WEC. The background to this is that Chevrolet will only produce a few GT3 models in the first year. The original plan was to supply the USA exclusively in 2024. But with the LMGT3 class in the WEC and the prospect of Le Mans, those plans have changed.
The Canadian AWA team has also already completed a test with the new Corvette. This took place at Road America in Elkhart Lake following the IMSA race there. The former LMP3 team will enter the Corvette in the IMSA SportsCar Championship in 2024.
The step into the GT3 world opens up interesting prospects for General Motors, from the SRO Championship to the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring. But that is still up in the air.
