DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The highest-level, factory-supported manufacturing car-based class in American sports activities automobile racing has developed by a number of names and technical specs during the last 15 years.
However there’s been one fixed: Antonio Garcia.
For the reason that 45-year-old Spaniard joined Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports in 2009, he has excelled in each iteration of the premier GT class, by half a dozen technical regulation modifications and three generations of Corvettes.
Garcia received his first championship within the GT class of the American Le Mans Sequence in 2013 with co-driver Jan Magnussen, the ultimate yr earlier than ALMS and IMSA’s TUDOR United SportsCar Championship merged to create the modern-day IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Teamed with Magnussen from 2014-’19, Garcia received a pair of IMSA Grand Touring Le Mans (GTLM) titles for Corvette Racing in 2017 and ’18 and added two extra teamed with Jordan Taylor in 2020 and ’21.
Garcia has collected a complete of 31 IMSA race wins alongside along with his quintet of championships, together with 5 wins since the latest GT class realignment that created the Grand Touring Daytona Professional (GTD PRO) class in 2022. However whether or not with Taylor in ’22 and ’23 or his present co-driver Alexander Sims, Garcia has by no means achieved a GTD PRO championship.
That might change October 11 at Michelin Raceway Street Atlanta. Sims and Garcia and the No. 3 Corvette Z06 GT3.R will carry a slim 18-point benefit into the season-concluding Motul Petit Le Mans over Albert Costa, who has shared DragonSpeed’s No. 81 Ferrari 296 GT3 for almost all of the yr with Giacomo Altoè and endurance driver Davide Rigon. Mike Rockenfeller and Sebastian Priaulx sit third, 169 factors again within the No. 64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3, with an out of doors shot.
Given his file, it’s stunning that Garcia has not received a championship up to now in the course of the GTD PRO period. What’s much more exceptional is that whereas Corvette Racing owns eight victories at Motul Petit Le Mans, Garcia has by no means tasted the champagne in Georgia – a measure of how difficult and unpredictable the 10-hour day-into-night endurance traditional will be.
Sims and Garcia achieved their solely win of the ’25 season at VIRginia Worldwide Raceway with an aggressive undercut pit cease technique from the Corvette by Pratt Miller staff that vaulted them to the entrance of the sector. At that time, they led Costa by 53 factors, however the fellow-Spaniard minimize the margin to 18 by ending second forward of the No. 3 Corvette in fourth at the latest WeatherTech Championship race at Indianapolis.
“The previous couple of races we’ve been at all times making an attempt to cowl totally different methods coming from particularly the No. 77 (the defending GTD PRO class champion AO Racing Porsche that lies fourth on this yr’s standings) or the No. 81 (Costa),” Garcia mentioned. “When persons are most likely not feeling very aggressive or will not be in competition in some unspecified time in the future, that’s once they roll the cube and so they type of put all people below the stress.
“So, I believe we actually should be very ready on that earlier than the races – realizing what to do and easy methods to react to folks,” he continued. “Perhaps there’s one thing we will do, like we did at VIR, be the primary one to actually make the transfer. You play it out from there and nonetheless go for the win.”
Garcia famous that preventing for a championship has turn out to be harder since IMSA aligned its GT lessons to the worldwide FIA GT3 specification in 2022, principally eliminating the efficiency disparity that existed between GTD class vehicles and barely sooner GTLM entries. GTD and GTD PRO now additionally use a standardized Michelin tire, whereas within the GTLM period, producers labored with Michelin to develop tires for his or her particular automobile.
Corvette Racing had been a pure manufacturing facility program for the reason that early 2000s. Nonetheless, the shift in laws required Chevrolet and Pratt Miller Motorsports to create the first-ever Corvette GT3.R for buyer gross sales. Ford Racing shortly adopted go well with with a GT3 model of the Mustang.
“GT1, GT2, GT Le Mans…they have been actually cool vehicles to drive, and we had quite a lot of enjoyable with these vehicles throughout these years,” recalled Garcia. “The transition to GT3 was somewhat bit troublesome, or totally different, as a result of we had a transition yr with a little bit of a combination till the Z06 GT3.R was in a position to race. However I don’t see many, many variations, as a result of there may be at all times a extremely good stage of drivers and good groups you’re preventing in opposition to.
“That is my sixteenth yr with the staff, and the method has at all times been the identical,” he added. “The Corvette Racing mentality has been at all times the identical and the method to each single race or championship has been the identical whatever the precise class of automobile we have been operating. That is simply one other yr we’re very comfortable and proud that we’re in competition.”
Driving for IMSA’s most established and profitable GT-class staff, the No. 3 Corvette pairing has the championship-tested mettle going into Motul Petit Le Mans over Costa and the DragonSpeed Ferrari, that are of their first full season of GTD PRO competitors. Chevrolet leads Ferrari by 46 factors within the GTD PRO Producer’s championship.
“The final two years, we got here up quick, however we’re wanting ahead to point out and use all of the information now we have to be on this place,” Garcia mentioned. “Let’s see if now we have sufficient of every little thing – tempo, race technique, and I might say somewhat little bit of luck.
“Let’s hope every little thing falls in the correct route and we will provide you with one other championship.”
