News from GM Europe

Clear skies through the night gave way to storm clouds and heavy rain in the afternoon as the cars raced toward the 3 p.m. finish. With Canadian ace Ron Fellows at the wheel, the No. 63 Corvette C6.R was carving into the one-lap lead held by the No. 009 Aston Martin DBR9. Gaining as much as 30 seconds per lap, Fellows' charge was stymied by a safety car period for rain that began 49 minutes before the scheduled finish. A final 10-minute dash under the green flag was not enough time for Fellows to catch the Aston Martin.



“Visibility was terrible and there were lots of puddles, but we were trying to make up time without hitting anything,” said Fellows. “It was a real challenge. I'm not too happy about when that safety car came out, but that‘s history. The crew and my teammates Jan and Johnny did an incredible job throughout the race. We just didn't have the speed on the straights to match those guys consistently, but the rain was a bit of an equalizer. It should have been a 4 o'clock finish!”

The long-anticipated rain arrived at the start of the 22nd hour. As Fellows entered the pit lane, crew chief Dan Binks exclaimed, “It's raining big time!” The team brought out full rain tires and Fellows stayed in for the final two hours and 53 minutes. When the deluge began, times for the GT1 field slowed by more than a minute per lap on the wet track.

“At the end I thought the rain could save us until the safety car put an end to that,” said Jan Magnussen. “Ron was so fast at the end, he was fired up and it was so cool to watch him. He was gaining seconds every lap, and we were calculating when he would catch the Aston Martin. I love those kind of endings.

“It was a great race between two strong rivals,” Magnussen continued. “For our part it was almost a perfect race. We didn't stop once in the pits except for fuel, tires or a driver change. It was probably the most flawless Le Mans I‘ve done. The only problem was that there was somebody else who had a nearly flawless run and they were just a tick faster.”

The No. 63 Corvette C6.R made 27 pit stops during the race and completed 342 laps, a distance of 2,897 miles. Today's runner-up finish ended Corvette Racing's three-year winning streak in the 24 Hours of Le Mans; the team finished third in 2000 and second in 2003.

“There‘s disappointment in not winning, but this is an impossible race to win,” said Corvette Racing program manager Doug Fehan. “Just the honor of competing with the world's best sports car teams and finishing on the podium is a huge reward. There's no shame in finishing second – we've actually finished second here before and lived through it.”

Corvette Racing‘s next event is the American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, Conn. on July 6-7, 2007.