Corvette Scores 100th Victory in GTLM at Lime Rock

Corvette Racing took its historic 100th victory in Saturday’s Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park, in a 1-2 result led by Oliver Gavin.

Gavin assumed the GT Le Mans class lead towards the closing stages of the race, passing Giancarlo Fisichella’s No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE, which went wide and picked up grass and dirt into its grill.

The Englishman held on for his third IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory of the season, teaming up with Tommy Milner in the No. 4 Corvette C7.R.

Antonio Garcia put the sister No. 3 car into second position, after sharing the car with Jan Magnussen. Sixty of the team’s 100 victories have been 1-2 finishes.

Ryan Briscoe was third in the No. 67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT, while Fisichella finished fourth after his incident that lost him the lead.

Both the Porsche 911 RSRs and BMW M6 GTLMs had disappointing races, picking up damage.

The two BMW Team RLL cars ended up in the tire wall, after contact with the Porsches, and the No. 912 Porsche North America car retired after damage from one of these collisions.

The No. 911 car, meanwhile, suffered issues after hitting a curb and slowing on track.

Andy Lally’s strong final stint gave the GT Daytona honors to Magnus Racing and co-driver John Potter, their second of the season, leading a 1-2 for the Audi R8 LMS.

Lally passed the No. 33 Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper GT3-R of Jeroen Bleekemolen with 21 minutes to go, having moved from fourth to first in the matter of a few minutes.

Bleekemolen took over the class lead in the pit lane as his crew impressively got him out after co-driver Ben Keating pitted in eighth.

The No. 6 Stevenson Motorsports Audi of Robin Liddell and Andrew Davis finished second, demoting Bleekemolen to third by the checkered flag.

The highest-placed Lamborghini Huracan GT3 was the Paul Miller Racing car of Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers in fourth.

Change Racing looked strong at the start of the race, with the pole-sitting No. 16 Lamborghini of Spencer Pumpelly and Corey Lewis, but eventually finished 8th in class.

An early race incident for the class championship-leading No. 63 Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3 of Christina Nielsen, who was hit by Mikhail Goikhberg’s JDC-Miller Motorsports Oreca FLM09, resulted in a 11th place class finish.

Their championship lead, however, was salvaged by a late-race steering issue for the No. 23 The Heart of Racing/AJR Porsche 911 GT3 R of Alex Riberas, which finished 14th after running inside the top-three.

RESULTS: Northeast Grand Prix