Milner Downplays Pro Class Championship Chances

Photo: DXDT Racing

Tommy Milner has downplayed the prospects of he and DXDT Racing co-driver Alec Udell walking away with the Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS Pro class title, despite having a mathematical chance of the championship with three races to go.

The Corvette factory ace and Silver-rated co-driver are on the string of six consecutive class wins in their No. 63 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R heading into this weekend’s penultimate round of the season at Barber Motorsports Park.

While having taken a Balance of Performance hit compared to the car’s configuration last time out at Road America, Milner is hopeful of continuing to rack up wins in what’s so far been a “dream” season.

“That’s the goal,” he told Sportscar365. “We have a little bit more of a BoP change that doesn’t quite go in our favor.

“However, saying that, certainly the Corvette has been very, very good in braking and all of the handling aspects of most of these race tracks.

“I think looking at the schedule from the beginning, I think we always thought this event would be our strongest.

“We still have high hopes that we can we can win two more races here.

“I think Indy will be its own battle with more cars in an endurance event, so it will be quite a bit different from what we’ve done so far this year.

“That obviously can change some things.”

Milner and the team head into the weekend having completed a single-day private test at Barber, where he said they were able to find a good setup on the car.

Unlike most SRO America weekends, there was no Thursday paid test during this event.

“From that side, we’ve done all that we can in this situation to be as prepared as possible for this weekend,” said Milner.

“It will be a little bit at the mercy of the pace and performance of the car compared to the others.

“We’re hoping to continue this wave of success.”

Despite missing the two opening events of the season, Milner and Udell head into the weekend at a 35-point deficit to Pro class leaders Elliott Skeer and Adam Adelson, with a maximum of 100 points still to play for.

It means the DXDT duo could walk away with the title if they continue their win streak for the final three races and the Wright Motorsports Porsche finishes off the podium in at least two races, or at the double-points paying Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS.

“I think unexpected would be the right word there,” said Milner on their championship chances. “That was not our intentions going into the year, of course, missing the first two rounds.

“To be honest with you, I haven’t even looked at the mathematic possibilities of what it would take because it seems to far-fetched in some ways.

“But I’ve heard on numerous occasions that it is mathematically possible.

“I think for that to happen, Adam and Elliott will have to have a bad race or two. They’ve certainly done a very good job all year long; they really haven’t made too many mistakes.

“I know they’ve had some issues in races with diffusers coming off, more than once now. They haven’t had a perfectly clean year but we haven’t either.

“I think it would be hard, based on their performances this year, or it would be unlike them, for something bad to happen. But as is always the case in racing, anything is possible.

“For that situation to happen, for us to somehow pass them in the points, we basically have to continue to win-out as we have been.

“That’s certainly our goal each weekend. We’ll just continue as we have.

“Realistically, it’s not something we talk about during the weekend. We don’t talk about the points, we just talk about trying to execute as well as we can.

“If we continue doing that, if it happens, it happens. But I still think sitting at the place we are, it’s very unlikely to surpass them.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John