0
0
Consistent Weekends Have Kept Team in GTD PRO Hunt
May 27, 2025
By Mark Robinson
IMSA Wire Service
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Considering the iconic appeal and noticeably bright yellow livery, it’s hard to picture a Chevrolet Corvette flying “under the radar” in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Yet that’s precisely where the No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R is heading to this weekend’s Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic.
The No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R, running as either “Rexy” or “Roxy,” has garnered the headlines in the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class with back-to-back wins to lead the standings in a bid to repeat as champion. But the No. 3 Corvette shared by Alexander Sims and Antonio Garcia is second, just 70 points behind. That’s miles closer than where they were a year ago at this time, mired in fifth place and 169 markers in arrears.
Taking a pause from General Motors’ driver-in-loop simulator last week in Charlotte, Sims admitted that the No. 3 lacks some pace compared to the Porsches and Ferraris in the GTD PRO class. Still, he and Garcia have remained in contention with consistent performances yielding two podium results in the first three races. They could be three-for-three in top-three finishes had a rear suspension part not failed in the final hour over the unforgiving Sebring International Raceway circuit at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.
“It’s been a good start to the year, I’d say,” Sims said during the break from sim testing. “Not perfect, but good.
“Whereas last year, it felt like the peaks were a bit higher but the lows were a bit lower, as it were, over the first few races,” he added, “it feels like we’ve been able to smooth that out a little bit. It feels like this year we’re doing a solid job, and yes, to be second in the standings is nice.”
Sims, Garcia and endurance driver Daniel Juncadella opened the season with a runner-up showing in the Rolex 24 At Daytona. The suspension issue led to a seventh-place finish at Sebring, but Sims and Garcia rebounded to finish third earlier this month in the TireRack.com Monterey SportsCar Championship.
“We haven’t had the fastest car just yet, but nevertheless the car has felt nice to drive,” Sims explained. “I think, bar Sebring, the two results we had were as good as we could have hoped. Daytona probably exceeded it a little bit the way the race panned out at the end. It was a super-hard race but I was able to move forward in the last hour and a half through just hard racing and being close to other people and being opportunistic rather than on pure pace.
“It just feels like we’ve been able to execute clean race weekends pretty well so far.”
Now they head to Detroit which, while tied with Long Beach for the shortest race on the schedule at 100 minutes, is one of the most important since it’s the home event for both team and manufacturer. The 1.654-mile downtown street circuit was new to WeatherTech Championship competitors last year and Sims was instantly taken by it.
“It’s a really cool track to drive on your own in practice,” he said. “I really couldn’t wipe the smile off my face because it was great to just do laps, and it’s not that often that you have that at a track where simply driving is enough to just put a smile on your face.”
The smiles remained through qualifying, when Garcia won the Motul Pole Award and the sister No. 4 Corvette of Nicky Catsburg and Tommy Milner qualified second. Those smiles turned quickly upside down in the race, though, when Garcia was forced to pit on the opening lap with a mechanical issue. He and Sims wound up finishing 10th.
With limited passing opportunities on the narrow track, Sims emphasized the importance of qualifying again on Friday.
“We’ll need to qualify well to have much of a chance,” he said. “It’s a short race so not many options on the pit stops – or the pit stop, as it were. If someone gets lucky and goes long and there’s a yellow or something, then they’ll benefit hugely.”
Another strong race result, he added, keeps the No. 3 Corvette in the hunt for the GTD PRO crown. Detroit is the first of three races in a six-week span that could determine whether Sims and Garcia are in contention when they reach the season finale in October. ‘Steady as she goes’ is the operative phrase.
“Relative to last year, it feels like we’re executing good weekends,” Sims said. “It’s probably going to be through consistency that we might be able to challenge for the championship. That’s really the hope that it can evolve over the next couple of races so that we can fight at the front. We’ll know more over the next race or two and then see whether we’re going to be in the fight for the championship or not.”
Practice and qualifying for the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic take place Friday. The race streams live at 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday on Peacock in the U.S., as well as on IMSA.tv and the IMSA YouTube channel globally.
