GTE Am Title “A Dream Come True” For Corvette Racing
Corvette Racing’s fourth-place finish at the 6 Hours of Monza may seem unremarkable at first glance. This is because the results prior to last weekend were so impressive. The #33 crew claimed wins at Sebring, Portimao and Le Mans and a second-place finish at Spa before arriving in Italy.
As such, you could be fooled into discounting yesterday’s outcome as a forgettable day at the office. That is until you see the championship standings, where Ben Keating, Nico Varrone and Nicky Catsburg sit on 145 points. Their nearest rivals, the all-female trio in the Iron Dames Porsche, are on 67. The Corvette crew may not leave Italy with a set of 6 Hours of Monza trophies, but the more important task is complete: securing the GTE Am Driver’s and Teams’ titles.
Wrapping up both titles in July, in a season that started in mid-March, has never been done before in this championship. No core FIA WEC title has ever been clinched with two races to go, months before the end-of-season prize presentation.
But Corvette Racing has done it. After lacklustre performances from their title rivals in the scorching heat at the Autodromo, a fourth-place finish in front of a 65,000-strong crowd was enough to seal the deal.
“I’ve said it over and over, but in this championship and in each one of the five races we’ve had, it has been a true team performance overall,” Keating said after the race. “You win as a team and you lose as a team, but we’ve also been lucky in quite a lot of places. It’s just been a magical season.
“Everyone kept talking about us needing to finish first or second in order to clinch the championship here. I kept saying it was more about where the #25 (ORT by TF Aston) and #85 (Iron Dames Porsche) finished rather than where we finished. We weren’t really racing for that.”
It has been a true team performance
This is Keating’s second consecutive GTE Am title win, after claiming the Am crown last season with TF Sport.
Keating has continued to set the standard for Bronze-graded drivers worldwide with his efforts this year. He will be missed in 2024 when he is expected to race elsewhere, having declared that he has no intention of competing in GT3 on the world stage.
For teammate Nicky Catsburg, this title is the latest accolade in an ongoing series of remarkable results in 2023.
The Dutch Corvette factory driver, who has become synonymous with his versatility, has added a number of significant lines to his resume in recent weeks. His tour of Europe since mid-May has seen him win the Nürburgring 24 Hours overall in a Frikadelli Racing Ferrari, the Le Mans 24 Hours GTE Am class with Corvette, the Spa 24 Hours Pro/Am category in a SunEnergy1 Mercedes and now the GTE Am title in a C8.R.
It’s been a run for the ages…
“Honestly, this season might have been one of my nicest in motorsport,” he said. “It has been so cool, right from the start. It was always very relaxed with not a lot of pressure. Somehow the results just kept coming.
“It’s super, super cool to be able to call myself a World Champion. I think I had won it before with a team but not as a driver. So I’m really, really happy!”
Finally, for Nico Varrone, his part in this title win has been key. The 22-year-old Argentinian has taken to life at Corvette Racing like a duck to water and quickly become a popular member of the team. His unwavering positivity has been infectious, and his performances behind the wheel throughout his debut season in the WEC have been head-turning.
It’s super, super cool to be able to call myself a World Champion
This was a driver who thought his career was over during the pandemic. “I ran out of money, I ran out of support to get a drive,” he told DSC before Le Mans. “I returned home (from Europe) to Buenos Aires, I thought I would need to get a job or work in the family business.”
But this shot to prove himself, handed to him by Jeroen Bleekemolen (a friend and former teammate) who put in a good word with Corvette and recommended him for the WEC Bahrain Rookie Test last year, has re-launched his career.
“It feels very weird at the moment but means so much,” he admitted after the race. “To say that we are World Champions is just an amazing feeling. I’ve been working for this since I was 8-years-old and started driving karts. I didn’t imagine it was going to be so early.
“As Ben said, this was all teamwork all season. We’ve all done a great job – the three of us as teammates, the engineers and the pit crew have been amazing.”
All in all, for a factory team like Corvette Racing, which has been a loyal servant to top-level GT racing since the turn of the century, claiming a Le Mans class win and WEC title in the final year for GTE racing seems fitting.
On the cusp of a new era, which will see Corvette Racing’s primary role shift from all-out factory racing to operating a new customer programme in the GT3 space, it’s a memorable sign-off.
“How cool is this?” Said Laura Wontrop Klauser, the GM Sports Car Racing programme manager.
“The Corvette Racing team joined the WEC full-time last year to learn the championship and had some great successes. We enjoyed it so much and had an opportunity this year with Ben, Nicky and Nico to have a Corvette in the GTE Am class. This group couldn’t say no!
“Now to be able to walk away champions and win the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the final year of GTE and the C8.R is a dream come true.”
So what about the remaining races in Japan and Bahrain? Keating said in the post-race presser that it will be a five-month party until the end-of-season prize-giving ceremony in the Middle East. The pressure is now off.
“I keep on joking that because we’ve finished fourth, we get to lose 10 kilograms in success ballast!” He chuckled. “Now we can really start pushing hard because we don’t have to be conservative…
“Just kidding! It’s been a great season. I’m really proud of everyone on the Corvette Racing team.”
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