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VIR Post-Race Notebook

News and notes from Saturday’s Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway…

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

***Tommy Milner revealed post-race that he lost the lead at the start of the race to Corvette Racing teammate Jordan Taylor due to being on the wrong engine map.

***There was an uncharacteristic mistake for the No. 3 Corvette Racing crew as well during its first pit stop when it lost nearly 30 seconds due to attempting to put the wrong side tires on the car. The error put co-driver Nick Tandy out into the lead at the time.

***Taylor and Antonio Garcia only need to start next month’s season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans to wrap up their second consecutive GT Le Mans title and anther manufacturers’ championship for Chevrolet.

***WeatherTech Racing’s Cooper MacNeil described the final hour GTLM scrap between Estre, Garcia and Tandy as “some good hard racing” but “some fair and maybe some not fair.” He added: “That is GTLM; it’s hard and scrappy racing. You hope to be on the good end of it, but today we weren’t.”

***Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow claimed their seventh podium finish out of 11 races so far this season although have seen their points deficit to Pfaff Motorsports’ Laurens Vanthoor and Zach Robichon slightly expand to 50 points heading into Petit Le Mans.

***While winning the WeatherTech Sprint Cup, The Heart of Racing’s Ross Gunn believes they have an “outside chance” of the GTD title, with Gunn and co-driver Roman De Angelis sitting third, 177 points behind Pfaff’s Vanthoor and Robichon.

***Lamborghini was crowned Sprint Cup manufacturer champion by just 10 points over Aston Martin and a further six points on Lexus, which has been classified third.

***Jack Hawksworth described his final-lap pass around Patrick Long: “The 16 Porsche took no tires, and we had a bit of a gap, but we managed to close it down there with a bit better tires and made a good move there on our last stop.”

***It marked Hawksworth and co-driver Aaron Telitz’s first podium finish since the last GT-only round at Lime Rock Park in July.

***The pair of Acura NSX GT3 Evos both failed to finish the race. Mario Farnbacher’s Graident Racing entry nosed into the tire barriers after a right rear brake rotor failure to bring out the race’s only full-course caution while the No. 44 Magnus Racing Acura retired late with a wheel bearing issue.

***A new qualifying record was set in GTD. Gunn posted a 1:43.356 lap in his Heart of Racing Aston.

***Longtime NASCAR crew chief and team owner turned series promoter Ray Evernham served as the grand marshal for Saturday’s race.

***No fewer than 18 cars are scheduled to test at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta ahead of the ten-hour Petit Le Mans enduro over the course of this month. It includes the No. 3 Corvette, which is listed to be testing for “GT3 development.”

***Chevrolet’s all-new GT3 car based on the recently launched Corvette Z06 is not expected to debut until 2024, with a modified version of its GTLM-spec C8.R set to contest the new-for-2022 GTD Pro class.

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

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