Chalk it up to another win for the Bad Boy Vettes C6-R team in Long Beach. This is the last GT1 ALMS race until further notice, as the two C6-R Corvettes were the only GT1 series cars entered at the Grand Prix anyway. It is a shame if you have never made an ALMS race, as these GT1 counterparts are the most aggressive sounding Corvettes you will ever hear. As we previously reported [1], this will be the end of a legacy that was the C6-R GT1 race car. They will now be moving to GT2 in which they will have a new car ready for the next race at Mid-Ohio. The GT1 cars will now head to Le Mans, luckily undamaged from the race.
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Check out the Bad Boy Vette site [3] as well as the American Le Mans site [4].
Olivier Berretta became the qualifying driver and first in the #4 C6-R for the start of the race, and Oliver Gavin took the reigns for half the race. They finished first out of all the GT class cars and sixth overall with 1:41:57.648 on the clock. Their overall best lap was a 1:18.847, which is about 3 seconds off the P1 top average, not bad for a production-type car. This would mark the 32nd win for Gavin and 41st for Beretta, which is a series record.
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It wouldn’t be such a positive race for their team car #3 driven by Magnussen/O’Connell. After leading ahead of the #4 Corvette, they would fall to (what they thought was) transmission problems after 42 laps on the track, leaving them dead last and out of the race.
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Gavin was quoted saying, “Today was bizarre. It was a strange race in the way it all played out. Olivier (Beretta) had a tough stint because he was on a soft tire, and it was clear he was going to have trouble with it after Johnny pitted early with a puncture. We went to a medium (compound) and I was reeling in the other car before they had a problem. It became a challenge getting through the GT2 cars and not getting in the way of the prototypes and their race.”
It will be interesting to see how they will adapt to the GT2 class as BMW, Porsche, and Ferrari have had cars in this class for sometime. I am sure with their talented driving skill and knowledge of the class that it won’t take long to come out on top.
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