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CORVETTE RACING AT FUJI: Far East Beckons for First Time

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Milner, Tandy, No. 64 C8.R aim to keep momentum from Monza class win


CORVETTE RACING AT FUJI: Far East Beckons for First Time
Milner, Tandy, No. 64 C8.R aim to keep momentum from Monza class win

DETROIT (Sept. 6, 2022) – The last time Corvette Racing visited a ‘new’
track, it resulted in its first victory as an entrant in the FIA World
Endurance Championship.

It’s time again for the team to venture to a new venue as the WEC resumes
with the Six Hours of Fuji at historic Fuji Speedway. It’s the fourth round
of this year’s GTE Pro championship with Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy the
most recent winners at Monza in the No. 64 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet
Corvette C8.R.


The 16-turn 2.84-mile Fuji circuit has a good blend of technical and
high-speed sections that will put a premium on engineering setup and
strategy.


As is the case at the majority of circuits on the WEC calendar, Corvette
Racing can lean on the knowledge of past experience of Tandy at Fuji, where
he has made two career WEC starts albeit in prototype machinery.

While Fuji will be new to Milner, he does have experience racing in Japan as
part of the Asian Le Mans Series more than a decade ago. That doesn’t mean
that he and Corvette Racing will go in blind as the engineering team has
spent many days in Chevrolet’s Driver in the Loop simulator to explore and
establish baseline setups with Milner assisting and getting to know the
circuit.


Fuji will be Corvette Racing’s 32nd venue during its nearly 25-year run of
racetracks around the world with Bahrain still to go in the WEC’s season
finale.


The No. 64 Corvette opened the WEC season with a strong second-place showing
at the rain-shortened 1,000 Miles of Sebring. Things were trending the right
way for the Tandy/Milner pairing at the Six Hours of Spa before a red flag
just past the one-hour mark wiped out the team’s first planned pit stop and
effectively put the Corvette a lap down before finishing fourth.


The 24 Hours of Le Mans was a cruel blow with the No. 64 C8.R eliminated
while leading just shy of the 18-hour mark. Spirits lifted within the team
following a thrilling class victory at Monza where the team won a
fuel-mileage race for its first WEC win outside of Le Mans.


The Six Hours of Fuji for the FIA World Endurance Championship is scheduled
for 11 a.m. JST Sunday /10 p.m. ET Saturday from Fuji Speedway in Japan.
Qualifying is set for 2:40 p.m. JST/1:40 a.m. ET on Saturday. The race will
air live on MotorTrend with live streaming coverage of the race and
qualifying on the MotorTrend Plus app. Radio Le Mans will broadcast
qualifying and the race.


TOMMY MILNER, NO. 64 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: : “I’ve done
four days in the sim on Fuji. We’ve done quite a bit of work on it so far.
It’s a super cool track. It’s really fast in a lot of places. It’s unique in
some ways in that there are a lot of long-duration corners there. Car
balance and tire life will be super important. There are things we can do on
the setup side to help us put all of those things together. The sim also
gives us a chance to take some really big swings at it and experiments so to
speak with setup to find something with the car that we haven’t tried
before. While it’s nice for me to be able to drive these tracks on the sim
beforehand, I feel like it’s definitely a big help to go to these tracks and
get in the car and get going right away. It’s for sure speeding up the
learning process for me and but it’s also helping us quite a bit on car
setup as well. I think we’re pretty happy with our simulator program and the
benefits that it offers us.
Continuing momentum from Monza: “Just because we won Monza doesn’t mean we
are on a streak or a roll or whatever. We have to work as hard as we have to
be as competitive as we possibly can to get the most out of the car.
Focusing on yourself is always the best strategy to get the most out of
package. While it’s nice to think we were owed something, we did a good job
to get the car where we wanted it to be. The Corvette basically from the
first practice was already really good; we were able to just tweak it a
little bit throughout the weekend. We have to continue on that path –
working really hard on the simulator and in engineering as they always do to
figure out ways to get more out of it, which we’re doing. If we continue
putting in the hard work, the results will continue.”


NICK TANDY, NO. 64 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “Fuji is an
F1-type of circuit where the surface is pretty smooth. It’s on quite a flat
area. But it’s a track where it’s difficult to know the best way to go about
setup philosophy. There’s this huge straight where you need obviously
straight-line speed, but there are a couple other high-downforce corners.
Turn Three there is a long right that is one of the fastest and most
committed sections of racetrack anywhere in the world. Of course you want to
trim your car out to be fast on the straight, but you can’t afford to give
up downforce in these areas. It lends itself to good racing because there is
a slipstream effect if you can stay close to the cars in front of you
through the last sector and down the start/finish straight. There’s also the
weather aspect. Fuji in September can see very changeable conditions and the
rain can come in quickly. I’ve only been there twice but it’s the track
where I have the least level of experience personally. It will be one of our
toughest challenges as a team, I expect, being new to the circuit for the
first time.”
Motorsport culture in Japan: “Japan is a motorsport country and they have a
huge following. There always is a massive turnout for the World Endurance
Championship. They want to see the cars, and they want to see the racing. I’m
sure having Corvette Racing for the first time in Japan will be a big thing
for the Japanese who have never come to America or come to Le Mans to see
the Corvettes. They’re always super excited about seeing the cars, and the
people are super nice and respectful for everyone who comes over to race in
front of them. I’m looking forward to being in the car and with the team to
show them about Corvette Racing.”

Ryan Smith
Judy Kouba Dominick
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