There will be a fourth Corvette C7.R in next month’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, following confirmation that Team AAI will make the switch from its initially entered Corvette C6.R entry. (En Français)
The Taiwanese team, which will again be run by ProSpeed Competition, will campaign the same chassis that won last year’s race in the hands of Oliver Gavin, Tommy Milner and Jordan Taylor.
A deal to run the C7.R under the ProSpeed banner fell through after its entry was not accepted by the Le Mans Selection Committee, resulting in the changeover of the car to the AAI entry for the race.
“The original idea was to have our C7.R and two C6.Rs in support with Team AAI,” ProSpeed team principal Rudi Penders told Endurance-Info.
“Since Le Mans last year, we stayed in touch and they even had other projects under consideration.”
ProSpeed recently took delivery of the car and members of the Belgian team spent some time at Pratt & Miller to understand the intricacies of the 2015-spec Corvette C7.R
The Corvette program marks a departure from the team’s Porsche roots, having fielded 13 different Porsche 911 GT3 chassis over the last seven years.
“We missed the timing with Porsche,” Penders said. “We wanted a new car but it was not available. Since April of last year, we tried to build a strong program around a Porsche GT3.”
Instead, the focus will be on Corvette at Le mans. AAI’s Jun San Chen is the only confirmed driver thus far for the GTE-Am class effort, with news on the team’s Gold/Platinum rated pilot to potentially come later this week.
AAI has a second entry on the reserve list, which remains a Corvette C6.R.