Momentum “Shifting in the Right Direction” for Eastwood

Charlie Eastwood believes “momentum is shifting in the right direction” for he after his first race win as a Corvette factory driver in last weekend’s European Le Mans Series race at Imola, hoping to carry that into the fifth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship season at Sao Paulo.

Eastwood, Rui Andrade and Hiroshi Koizumi took a landmark victory for the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R in the 4 Hours of Imola, which was notably the car’s first victory on European soil.

On a personal note, it marked the first time Eastwood won a race for Corvette since joining from Aston Martin.

“Momentum definitely seems to be shifting in the right direction,” Eastwood told Sportscar365. “As far back as Le Mans, to get a podium there with the pace that we had was really promising.

“[We had a] super solid race and actually we ended up being a lot closer than we thought on pace which was also great.

“Then another really strong weekend in Watkins Glen, just an unfortunate DNF.

“Ten minutes to go when we were in second and the Lexus then ran out of fuel, but again that was pretty close to a win.

“And then to get my first win in Imola last weekend was good. I don’t feel like I had any pressure to get my first win.

“But it is always just a good sort of momentum shift to sort of just kick on and keep pushing for more results.”

The victory came after what Eastwood described as a “challenging first 18 months” with Corvette through the early phase of the Z06 GT3.R program.

“On the flip side I’ve loved every minute of it because they’re a great bunch to work with,” he said.

“There’s no secret we’ve had a tough start to the campaign with some issues here and there and just sort of missing opportunities. We were close to getting a win in Bahrain at the end of last year.”

The Belfast native also hailed the ELMS result as a big morale booster for the TF Sport crew, who traveled directly to Brazil from Italy as part of a double header weekend for the Tom Ferrier-led squad.

“Coming into here, everyone’s definitely on a high off the last month,” said Eastwood. “I would say both Le Mans and the ELMS, because a lot of the crew is the same and they flew straight from ELMS.

“If you have a bad weekend there it’s a very long two-and-a-half weeks away from all their families but they came off the back of that with a great win.”

Eastwood: “Championship Not Out of the Question” for No. 81 Crew

Eastwood also struck an optimistic figure when discussing the WEC championship situation for the No. 81 Corvette, as he and co-drivers Andrade and Tom van Rompuy are currently sixth in the LMGT3 standings.

Despite trailing the No. 92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R by 43 points, the 29-year-old maintained that the “championship is not out of the question” with four races remaining.

“Ultimately, you just need to have a sniff going into Bahrain” said Eastwood. “You’ve seen it with the sister car. They get a win in Qatar, a couple of bad results from then and they’re still third in the championship.

“That 38 points is so huge. It can swing so quickly when you get to Bahrain.

“For us, we need to just make sure that we’re getting some good results, getting that gap down, and give ourselves a chance. Definitely, for how poor the start of the season is, you do well in Le Mans and you’re really quite back in this.

“We just need to take each race as it comes and just try and win every single one of them.”