Corvette Racing, a joint effort between General Motors and the engineering company Pratt & Miller, has been one of the most successful teams in sports car racing over the past quarter of a century.
Its yellow Corvettes are regulars in IMSA SportsCar Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship races, including in this past weekend's 24 Hours of Le Mans where the team's no. 3 Corvette C8.R took home a class victory.
However, with the arrival of a new Corvette Z06 GT3.R race car next year, GM will end its full factory effort and pass the mantle to customer teams. That's according to Mark Stielow, GM's motorsport competition engineering director, who spoke recently with Sportscar365.
“As we moved into the GT3 platform we wanted to be able to be more customer-based,” he said. “There was a lot of internal debate inside GM and us about whether we’d want our customers racing against a factory.”
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R race car
Stielow said GM will likely still support drivers by getting them into teams fielding the Corvette Z06 GT3.R in what he referred to as a “hybrid” program. The move is likely to attract more customer teams, which would lead to more Corvettes on the track.
Stielow also indicated that Pratt & Miller may be among the teams fielding the new race car, though any entry will likely have a different name than the current Corvette Racing banner.
The Corvette Z06 GT3.R was shown for the first time in January. The car is still in development but deliveries are confirmed to start in the third quarter of the year, giving teams enough time to test the car ahead of the 2024 season.
The car's main competition will be in the GTD class of the SportsCar Championship, as well as the comparable LMGT3 class to be introduced to the World Endurance Championship in 2024.
