Antonio Garcia managed to take the lead position in the race when the Porsche 911 of Nick Tandy had a tyre failure with only 18 minutes remaining. Gracia felt similar vibrations from his car which made him think that he too had cut his tyre but it was just the diffuser which somehow got loose and was flapping behind the C8.R.
Gracia stated, “It was literally when I was watching the #911 go into the pitlane. At the same time, I had a massive vibration and I thought I had a tire blowing up. It was scary because it would have been a full lap back to the pits.
Antonio Garcia mentioned, “I realized it was speed-related and wasn’t bad all the time. It took me three or four laps to be kind of cautious. Once I realized it was hanging on, I stepped up my pace a little bit more to make it difficult for the cars behind me to catch up. I was happy that traffic wasn’t too bad at that time and I could manage to stay ahead."
He added, “It took me a little bit, but the whole car was shaking a lot. At about 200kph, the entire car was shaking. I knew it was coming from the back, but even the front end and front grip were moving around. The rear grip definitely was the same so maybe we were a little bit faster down the straights after that – who knows!"
He mentions that,“It was challenging to drive. Once I figured out what lines to use and not hit the kerbs to keep both tires on the ground, it went my way a little bit.”
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It was the fourth consecutive Grand Touring Endurance win for the Corvette team, which has given Garcia and his teammate Jordan Taylor a 19-point lead in the championship.
“It felt like an endurance race with all the issues everyone was having,” said Taylor. “A lot of guys were making mistakes… going off-track, pit stop issues and tires. For us, it was about damage control and minimizing mistakes. Today was out-of-character in IMSA to see this many issues happen.
“Seeing how strong the Porsches were on pace, we knew they were going to be hard to beat. We focused on our own race, and it came to us in the end with attrition and not making mistakes. I think we had the least amount of mistakes, and that’s why we won.”
