It all started so well. Corvette Racing led the GTE Pro Class at 4 pm Saturday at Le Mans from 1-2 on the grid, by the end of the 18th hour, it was all over.
The #63 Corvette C8.R was the first car to hit major trouble suffering a rear suspension failure just before the halfway point in the race. The car dropped many laps to the rest of the cars in the GTE Pro Class putting them firmly out of contention. Turns out one of the coilover shocks had literally unwound itself causing the failure and subsequent damage associated.
The #64 was leading when it was caught out by a slow zone and then had to stop for an unscheduled brake change. However, overnight due to other cars having issues the #64 was leading and in a straight fight with the #51 AF Corse Ferrari for the GTE Pro Class victory.
Corvette Racing announced that the #63 Corvette C8.R was an official retirement from the race just before 10 am local time in France and as the statement was being read out on the radio suddenly there was a huge accident with the #64 (being driven by Alexander Sims at the time) hitting the wall hard after the #83 LMP2 car (also run by AF Corse ironically) moved over and clipped the Corvette ending the race. See the video here.
With the ACO announcing on Friday that effectively GTE Pro will not run after the end of the 2022 season, this could be the final time that Corvette Racing competes at Le Mans. If that’s the case, it’s a very sad way to end an odyssey that started in 2000 at Le Mans.