The new C6-R has a difficult task to accomplish. The previous C5-R won his class in 3 of the last 4 editions of the legendary Le Mans 24-hour race.
The new Corvette C6-R 2005 competition debuted successfully this year at the 12 Hours of Sebring in March after a long year of development and tuning. The car piloted by Fellows, O Connell and Max Papis arrived in 2nd place while the one piloted by Gavin, Beretta and Magnussen took 3rd place. In the general they bequeathed in excellent positions 4th and 5th, which speaks of great reliability.
Responsibility and pressures grow every year. For example, last year 2004 the aim was to make the C5-R more dominant. He dominated so much that he won his class in all races of the American Le Mans Series category. Now with the C6-R they will try to repeat the feat, which they recognize as a very big challenge.
The Corvettes will be driven by the same 6 riders from the previous season: Ron Fellows, Johnny O Connell and Max Papis on board #3; while Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta and Jan Magnussen are responsible for #4.
All of them are very experienced. Olivier Beretta led Team Oreca's Dodge Viper GTS-R to victory in the European GT Championship years ago. Jan Magnussen raced in Formula 1 for Stewart and Max Papis had his good races in the CART (now Champ Car). Ron Fellows has won GT car races around the world and is even specially hired by NASCAR teams to run Sonoma and Watkins Glenn, USA mixed circuits.
But 2005 has been good so far for Chevrolet: 2nd and 3rd place in the first race at Sebring, 1st and 2nd in Atlanta and 1st and 2nd in Mid-Ohio. And with such results the reward is the temporary leadership of the GT1 class championship. Corvette #3 leads and #4 is the escort. Corvette's record at the American Le Mans indicates that he won 37 out of 58 races and 4 GT1 class championships consecutively. Added to this are the victories in his class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2001, 2002 and 2004 and the triumph in the overall table of the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2001.
Two specially prepared C6-Rs will be measured throughout the year with tough rivals such as Maserati and Aston Martin in the GT1 class of the American Le Mans Series category.
They will also compete in the 24 hours of Le Mans in June. Here the epectative is very large, as GM Corvette has won its class in 3 of the last 4 years. Chevrolet used all possible resources from General Motors to make it the most technically advanced racing Corvette GM has ever built.
The C6-R features a new V8 at 90º small block, 7.000 cm3 with specially manufactured CNC cylinder heads, titanium valves and crankshaft and forged steel crankshaft. The street Corvette and the racing Corvette have the same V8 adapted each to its environment. The interesting thing here is that, while they differ in their specifications, the methodologies and the development process are practically the same.
The new C6 is shorter despite being longer between axles. Engineers are looking for a way to get an aerodynamic package that with a rear spoiler and a front spoiler allows higher aerodynamic load on high-speed curves, making the car more stable.
© Adrián Blanco 2005 — Prohibited the total or partial reproduction of text and/or images without explicit written consent of the author. —