Corvette Racing at Long Beach: What Might Have Been…

Photo Credit: Richard Prince for Corvette Racing

In-race contact impacts both DXDT and AWA Corvettes in tough street fight

LONG BEACH, Calif. (April 12, 2025) – Two separate rounds of contact ruined the days of the two Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs at the Grand Prix of Long Beach on Saturday in a rough-and-tumble race on the streets of southern California.

AWA’s Matt Bell and Orey Fidani finished 13th in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GT Daytona (GTD) class with the No. 13 entry, the highest-finishing Corvette. Meanwhile, the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette of Tommy Milner and Robert Wickens placed 15th after a late-race pitstop to repair damage with the Z06 GT3.R running sixth at the time.

The DXDT Corvette – equipped with a hand-controlled electronic brake system from Bosch – was one of the biggest stories of the Long Beach weekend. It enabled Wickens to make his first start in the WeatherTech Championship, and for a while it looked like it could be a dream result.

Wickens began eighth but picked up a spot before what was to be the team’s only pitstop with a little more than an hour left in the 100-minute race. A quick exchange and full-service stop had Milner back out in 10th place. The Corvette factory driver wasted no time in moving through the field by advancing four spots in less than 15 minutes before settling into sixth place.

He made a clean pass on the inside of the tight Hairpin Turn that leads onto the front straight but appeared to get locked up with another car out of the corner, which pulled away the Corvette’s left-rear bodywork. Series officials required the DXDT team to pit the Corvette with 16 minutes left in the race.

AWA”s race took a big hit – literally – much earlier. Fidani started 11th after his best qualifying effort in his second year with the No. 13 Corvette and was solidly in 10th place before another GTD car tried to divebomb him, which pushed the AWA entry into the tire barriers.

The team lost a lap with a resulting pit stop to inspect the Corvette, which suffered minor bodywork damage that still impacted the balance of the No. 13 for the balance of the race. Undeterred, Fidani and Matt Bell drove their way back onto the lead lap by the end of the race.

The Corvette Z06 GT3.R’s next race in IMSA is May 9-11 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, California.

CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R POST-RACE DRIVER QUOTES

MATT BELL, NO. 13 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R:

“Not the race we were hoping for. Obviously Orey’s start and the first part of stint was phenomenal. I think that was his best performance in the car, and that gave us all a lot of confidence that we could go forward in the second half of the race. Unfortunately a rogue maneuver from one of our competitors put Orey in the wall and a lap down. That ruined our race. The team did a great job on the strategy to get us back on the lap, which in a 100-minute race is almost impossible. So great job by them reacting to that. We were still at the very rear of the field, and it’s hard to come through around here. I managed to gain one place but unfortunately that’s all I could do. It’s a shame, really.”

OREY FIDANI, NO. 13 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R:

“Things started off well. It looked like it was going to be a positive day until it wasn’t. Unfortunately I got sent off into the wall which put us down a lap. We managed to get that lap back but it just wasn’t enough today. It’s tough but we’ll go onward and upwards into Laguna.”

TOMMY MILNER, NO. 36 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R:

“A frantic first couple of laps there out of the pits. I was fighting with a lot of cars that came out of the pits with me and fighting with cars that did the one-lap overcut. So there was a lot going on there. Honestly, it felt like those first 10 laps felt like 50 laps with how much stuff happened, but we were able to come out ahead of them and then focus on the next two cars in front. The pace of the Corvette was strong, for sure. I think we had kind of what we thought from the beginning – we had a car that could compete for the win. Maybe we weren’t quite as quick as the Porsche but in any case we had a quick car. I caught the two Mercedes and all that was fine. Then I came up on the 96 BMW and it was just good racing. As has been the case all year long, we just don’t have the straight-line speed and the drive off the corner that almost everybody else does. So racing is difficult for us.

“I think he got balked big time into Turn Eight and I had a nice run on him going into Nine. I stayed close to him through there and then just was peeking around in 10. We were strong there, I could tell already and was in pretty good position to make a difficult pass, no question, in the Hairpin. I thought my braking point was fine. My entry speed was okay. I think, as is the case there, it’s hard to go two-by-two and he turned in because he needs to. I don’t think he did anything wrong really. We just made side-to-side contact and I think we just kind of got hooked together. I’ll have to see video to know for sure, but that’s what my feeling is.

“Unfortunately, that was a big problem for us. We had to come in and fix it. It’s unfortunate for the DXDT team… kind of seems like this is how their year has gone a little bit so far. They’ve been really promising for a good part of the race and then something kind of hurts them a little bit toward the end, and that happened again today.

“Removing that and looking back on the weekend, I think there’s a lot of positives about what happened… getting Robbie in the car and comfortable in this hectic environment. There’s no more hectic environment than a Long Beach Grand Prix weekend with one day of practice and qualifying and then racing. From my perspective, I think he did an excellent job this weekend in the most difficult conditions at the most difficult track that he’s gonna experience this year. To me there was nowhere where he lacked anything. He had pace, he has the racecraft. He’s for sure is gonna want more and more time and experience. I think he’s going to have a darn successful year this season.”

ROBERT WICKENS, NO. 36 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R:

“I’m disappointed with the result, but I am proud of what we achieved. It definitely wasn’t the end to the weekend that we wanted. Qualifying dictated the weekend for us, unfortunately. We knew it was going to be a track-position race. Qualifying was not what we deserved; we know we had more speed than that, but it is what it is. This is a competitive championship, and we did what we could in the race.

“I kept the car clean and gave it to Tommy, and he got out in P10. I think our driver change wasn’t quite what it needed to be. We lost some track position, but then Tommy drove his heart out. He got us up to P5 and was making things happen. It was awesome to see. Unfortunately we had to come in and make a repair after Tommy took fifth. I think that was a little harsh, but there is nothing you can do when race control gives you a black flag for repairs.

“There are a lot of positive takeaways from the weekend. We proved we belong here, that we can be competitive. The Bosch hand-control system worked flawlessly, DXDT Racing gave us a great Corvette. The car was very good all weekend and I feel like we had one of the cars to beat. We just couldn’t maximize it, and that is what hurts right now.”

Source:

CorvetteRacing.com

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