Milner Hoping to “Get Over the Hump” for Corvette at CTMP

Photo: Richard Prince/GM

Tommy Milner said he’s hoping to “get over the hump” with the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R this weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, with Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports seeking its first win with the car.

While Milner helped give the new-for-2024 GT3 contender its maiden victory in global competition during the Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS event at Circuit of The Americas in May, the pair of factory-supported cars have yet to visit victory lane in the highly competitive IMSA GTD Pro ranks.

Milner and co-driver Nicky Catsburg narrowly missed out on the class win in last month’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen after being forced to pit for a splash-and-dash on the final lap while leading the race.

The Watkins Glen round, however, showcased an improvement in the car’s reliability compared to early season rounds.

“At the start of the year, it’s always tough to go to these long-distance races – Daytona and Sebring – with a brand new car,” said Milner.

“I would say we’ve had a little bit more lingering issues than we would have liked and as we’ve seen in the past from this team and program.

“I feel like at this point now that the ones that have lingering, we’ve gotten a handle on finally or we feel like we have. You never know until the results show it.

“Le Mans was good from the program, generally, as far as reliability goes. From that side, there’s been some minor updates to correct some of the problems. All our testing has been smooth sailing typically; that’s obviously a good sign.

“The car has been fast from the beginning. That’s been nice that we haven’t had to worry so much about trying to find speed in the car.

“Maybe right now we are a little too mismatched with some of the other cars in our class with how we make our speed versus them. We typically seem to be down on power to most cars.

“Some of the racing can be difficult at times. We can get stuck behind cars quite easily that might be slower than us over a lap but we can’t do much with it currently with the way things are right now. It changes obviously.

“At Laguna Seca we were fast. The way that we made our speed and our pace over a lap didn’t hinder us there.

“Watkins Glen was a little different in that regard. I feel the car is in a good place. The reliability has been quite a bit better. We’ve always been doing the fine-tuning stuff with the car setups as we can.

“A lot of the men and women at Corvette Racing, Pratt Miller and GM have been working hard to fix the small little things that become bigger things in races.”

When asked what it would mean to score a breakthrough WeatherTech Championship win this weekend at CTMP, Milner said it would be “big” for the entire program.

“We’ve been close, we feel like, for many of the races this year. For one reason or not, we haven’t quite finished the job so we’re trying to make that happen this weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park,” he said.

“It’s been a little bit for me to be at CTMP but I was just there recently for testing. It reminded me of how awesome the track is and how much fun it is to drive.

“Even in our GT cars, the rhythm there is like no other racetrack in the world. It’s super-fast and a lot of fun.

“We got a taste of some of the multi-class racing with some of the LMP2 cars that were there testing with us, so we have a feel for that already. It should be exciting.

“It’s definitely a difficult racetrack to pass in some situations. But we’re excited to get to CTMP and hopefully get over the hump to get a win for this Corvette Racing program.”

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