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DETROIT – The Corvette racing team installed anti-lock brakes (ABS) on its C8R racers for this year’s Detroit Grand Prix in preparation for moving next year from IMSA’s GTLM class, which does not allow such componentry, into the GTD Pro class, which does.
IMSA will eliminate the GTLM class for 2022, replacing it with the GTD Pro class. Differences between the two are in the details, like the addition of ABS, allowing for the easy transition.
Numerous media outlets reported the one-off preparation of the General Motors competitors which was allowed by IMSA since the team’s two cars were the lone entries in the class during the June Belle Isle race.
The inclusion of ABS on the C8R racers was not widely known until this week.
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GM Sports Car Racing Program Manager Laura Wontrop Klauser and Corvette Racing’s Antonio Garcia both confirmed the use of the GT3 ABS brakes in an interview with Sportscar 365.
“For sure we’ve been trying different systems and everything,” Garcia said. “Knowing that next year is just an evolution of the car we actually have and just having a few things to put together with the current car we have. We’ve been developing and testing different things. [We’re] just trying to learn the car and how it’s going to feel like.”
Garcia said the Detroit Grand Prix offered a “one-off” race to test the system.
“We were just racing one another, so it was a good thing that we could run it there and have a first experience on that.”
Klauser confirmed that GM had IMSA’s blessing to use the GT3 system to “test how it would perform” and get some “real-world correlation” in the first public acknowledgement that the C8.Rs were not adhering strictly to ACO’s GTE rules for the Detroit Grand Prix.
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According to a report in GM Authority: Chevy tested the C8R ABS system on its simulator prior to the Detroit race, allowing it to co-relate the sim data with real-world data and prepare for 2022. Garcia said the team has been “developing and testing different things” throughout the year in anticipation of the GTD Pro switch, which will take effect at the 2022 24 Hours of Daytona in January.
“[We’re] just trying to learn the car and how it’s going to feel like,” he said.
