Corvette says that it would be against the marque’s wishes if the ACO opts to bar factory teams from competing in its new-for-2024 GT category, according to GM’s sports car programme manager Laura Wontrop Klauser.
The American manufacturer previously indicated that it would be important for Corvette to be able to continue to field a factory entry into future GT racing categories, primarily in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The ACO, however, indicated shortly after its announcement of a GT3-based platform for 2024 that it is looking to prevent manufacturer from fielding factory entries with the aim of keeping costs as low as possible.
Were this to happen, it could theoretically leave Corvette on the sidelines. In its two-decade history at Le Mans, its Pratt & Miller-operated factory team has become a staple of GT racing in the French endurance classic.
“That would be disappointing on our side,” Klauser said in response to the ACO’s comments. “But again it would be nice to have that formalized from them exactly.”
“Clearly we’re running both strategies at home to see what we would do. You can’t sign up until you know what you’re signing up for.”
“We’ve already had those discussions a little bit, same with IMSA. We made our desires known. “But we are just one of many. We understand that. Hopefully we can get the amount of voice as everyone else, the fairness in that.”
Instead, Klauser said a similar class structure to the one set to be implemented by IMSA in 2022, with a GTD Pro and GTD class, would give the marque the opportunity to develop the necessary customer racing platform.
“That would be good, it would give us the option to choose what we want to do there. Obviously with GT3 we understand the customer requirement side of that.
“One of the things you don’t want to do is race your customers. That usually doesn’t work out well for either party involved.”
“Having the ability to segregate your pro effort if you want to play factory, play there and have an area for your customers to be in, that would be ideal.
“I understand there’s different strategies and how you can do that and how you can interface. We’ll just have to look and see what makes sense for Corvette.”
