AWA Retires Rolex 24 GTD-Winning Corvette Z06 GT3.R

Photo: AWA

AWA’s Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R that co-drivers Orey Fidani, Matthew Bell, Lars Kern and Marvin Kirchhofer wheeled to GTD class victory in last month’s Rolex 24 at Daytona has been retired, according to team founder/owner Andrew Wojteczko.

The winning No. 13 Corvette, has retained in the same condition as when it took the checkered flag at Daytona International Speedway on Jan. 26. While the car may make an occasional show appearance, it’s destined to remain in the team’s collection and not race again.

That caused a bit of a scramble for the team based in suburban Toronto.

Without their Daytona-winning whip, crew members faced another race of their own to prepare a different Corvette for last week’s IMSA-sanctioned test at Sebring International Raceway.

So, chassis No. 17, originally destined for use later this year at the 24 Hours of Le Mans – the race invitation a reward for Fidani winning IMSA’s Bob Akin Award as the top Bronze-rated GTD driver in 2024 – was pressed into service early.

Rushing to ready the new Corvette for Fidani, Bell and Kern to turn laps ahead of next month’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring left little time to savor the monumental Rolex 24 triumph.

“With the decision to retire the Rolex-winning car,” Wojteczko said, “we just basically moved the Le Mans car now to the IMSA car and we have a new Le Mans car coming for our team to prep. It’s been busy just getting the new car prepped for IMSA.

“I think we’re gonna have a few days (after the test to reflect on the win), so I’m really looking forward to that. Yeah, it’s a good morale boost, for sure.”

The morale-boosting Rolex 24 win came following an offseason focused on the tiny details necessary to improve car performance. The 2024 season concentrated on car durability and reliability, and to a greater extent just getting to know the Corvette program.

The Z06 GT3.R was in its first year of competition and AWA’s relationships with chassis manufacturer Pratt Miller Motorsports and General Motors in their infancy. After early hiccups, the AWA Corvette became a solid top-six finisher (four top-six finishes in total, culminating with a best of fifth at Road America) and wound up ninth in the GTD standings.

Wojteczko credited AWA race engineer Charlie Ping and data engineer Baptiste Viala for leading the offseason development charge that yielded the Rolex 24 victory.

“We came into the offseason feeling good where we’re at in durability and from an operations point of view,” Wojteczko said. “We knew we still weren’t where we wanted to be base-wise, and the offseason for our engineering staff was primarily focused on performance.

“Charlie and Baptiste especially spent basically from the checker at (Motul Petit Le Mans in October) to the green flag at Daytona fully focused on performance and improving our internal tools and improving our understanding of the car and the focus on performance.

“I thought we got to Daytona in a good place. It was clear early that the work in the offseason had had paid dividends.”

His drivers agreed. Bell said they knew the car was good from the start of the Roar Before the Rolex 24 test the weekend before the race.

“We felt we had something underneath us that we could go and take on the competition with, so that gives you some confidence,” Bell said amid the post-race delirium at Daytona. “I said this to everybody multiple times, that we were just waiting for the dream to stop, it can’t be this good kind of thing.

“From the very get-go (in 2024), the silver lining was the thing was awesome to drive,” Bell added. “You need a car that you can go and win with, and if you’ve got a hardworking group of people around it, if there’s anything to fix, it’s going to get fixed. … Orey had a huge amount of faith in everybody, and we knew from last year if we stayed on this train, there’s going to be success coming.”

Indeed, Fidani’s faith extended throughout the team and to partners Pratt Miller and GM as well. They’ve been rewarded with Rolex watches, and they’re looking for more.

“The Chevy guys are pretty awesome,” Fidani said. “It’s some of the best support I’ve ever had with customer programs over the years that I’ve ran. There’s hiccups with new cars, so I figured I’m going to stick it out and just work with these guys. They were awesome and fixed everything, and it turns out we had a pretty awesome car to race at the end of it.”

Source: Sports Car 365