American Le Mans Series

GT1 Pole for Gavin — great to have competition of Aston, Ferrari, Saleen and Maserati

Qualifying today was completely washed out due to a huge downpour, so the grid has been set using the best times set by everyone in yesterday’s official practice sessions. Everybody was expecting some rain, but not this much!

© Rick Dole / Olivergavin.com

“It’s great to be on pole position for GT1, this being the 50th year of the Corvette in competition, even if we didn’t get the chance to go for the time we really know is in the car. Nobody ran this afternoon as it was just too wet and too dangerous.

“I went out for practice this morning and couldn’t even get out of 3rd gear up the front straight. The maximum speed I hit was 94 miles per hour instead of the usual 160 because it was so wet and slippery. Sebring is so bumpy and consequently there’s a lot of standing water in the dips and hollows and you aquaplane everywhere. I was slipping and sliding all round the track so I did 3 laps, came in and parked it.

?Besides today, things have gone pretty much to plan so far. Sebring race week is always quite frustrating as you have been here, tested, and go away thinking you know how the car feels. Then everything changes in race week. The track is very slippery but you have to keep telling yourself it will get better and not to chase the set up too much.

“We have concentrated on getting everyone comfortable in the car and making the correct tyre selection, and then you just have to make sure you do the best possible in practice and qualifying so ensure you start up at the sharp end.

“With all the testing the team has done with the C6-R, I feel happy with the car. Both Olivier and Jan have done quite a lot of driving this week and are also happy. You always want to be better prepared but you know after a while what matters and what doesn’t. Considering how many thousands of track hours the C5-R had, the C6-R is not far behind it with just a fraction of the running time. As always, Sebring is a fantastic test and preparation for Le Mans and I’m looking forward to it. I’m quietly confident.

“It’s great to have the competition of Aston Martin, Ferrari, Saleen and Maserati here. I think everybody has strong points and it will be a hard race, but maybe our strongest competition will come from our sister car in the Corvette team. We don’t think it will be wet all the forecasts say it will be dry so we are looking forward to another hard, hot, bumpy 12 Hours of Sebring.”

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