Gavin qualifies on 2nd row at Road America

Corvette Racing’s Oliver Gavin today qualified the No.4 Corvette C6.R on the second row of the GT grid for tomorrow’s 6th round of the American Le Mans Series at the popular and scenic Road America track in Wisconsin.

#4 Flying Lizard Motorsports Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1: Oliver Gavin, Tom Milner

Photo by: Michael Tan

It was once again another super-tight 15-minute session – at least from second place down to 10th, with the SRT Viper of Jonathan Bomarito being ahead of the rest of the field by 0.7 seconds. This is the same amount of time which separated the next nine cars …

Olly completed five laps and set his fastest time on the third of those. He felt there was a little more to come, however, as he explains here: “I got a pretty good lap but felt I hadn’t quite got the most out of the car through turns 5, 6 and 8 so I was just trying to get that last little bit out of the car on the next lap.

“I just locked up the rear tyres coming into turns 5 and 6 and nearly lost the car completely in turn 6 but knew I was up on what I’d done previously so it’s somewhat frustrating that I made a mistake there, made a bit of a mess of it. I feel confident I could have got that bit closer to the front and got second place. Congratulations though to Antonio [Garcia, in the No.3 Corvette] who is on the front row with the Viper.

“As always in qualifying there are lots of ifs, buts and maybes but I’m pleased to be on the second row. Certainly after practice yesterday, looking at the pace of the BMWs and the Vipers, I thought that we might get be lucky to get second row at best in qualifying and more likely the third row.”

Olly predicts that the battle between Corvette, Ferrari, BMW and probably the Porsches will be a tight one but is confident that the No.4 will be right up there on race pace. “I think the Viper looks like it’s in another league here at the moment,” he reflected. “We’ve got to see how the race pans out. We managed to beat them last time out due to pit stops and strategy but it’s not easy to pass at Mosport and you can here so I think their straight line speed will get them out of any trouble and by people.

“A lot can happen but right now if you had to put a name on a winner for tomorrow you’d say the Vipers will be there. We’ll be fighting and battling as always and I know I’ve got the best team in the pit lane for strategy and pit stops. Tommy will start and I’ll finish – it’s going to be close and exciting for sure.”

Oliver Gavin