Sims: Corvette Chances “Tough to Judge” on 24H Spa Debut

Photo: JEP/SRO

Alexander Sims said expectations are “tough to judge” for this weekend’s CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, in what will mark the Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R’s debut in the Belgian endurance classic.

The Corvette factory driver is spearheading Johor Motorsports JMR’s lineup in the highly competitive Bronze class, sharing the wheel of the No. 2 entry with Princes Jefri and Abu Bakar Ibrahim and Australian Jordan Love.

It is one of two Corvettes in the 75-car GT3 field, the other being a Steller Motorsport-entered car in the Silver class.

Jefri Ibrahim currently leads the GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS points standings, following a pair of victories, including one with Sims at the opening weekend of the season in Sepang, which marked the car’s first win on Asian soil.

For Sims, who won the race outright in 2016 in a ROWE Racing BMW M6 GT3, this year’s approach will be different given the driver lineup and team’s focus on its own class.

“Expectations are tough to really judge going in just because the Bronze class that we’re in so darn competitive,” he told Sportscar365.

“We’ve got a good driver lineup but I also look at some of the other cars and some of them have phenomenal driver lineups to be honest.

“The biggest thing for us is going to have to be try and have a trouble-free race, as with any 24-hour race, but particularly in the SRO championship, a little bit like the WEC, you really start getting penalized if you drop laps down that wouldn’t have done from a pure pace point of view.

“We’ll see where we end up. I would assume with all of our drivers combined, we’re probably not going to be the ultimate fastest, being completely honest.

“But the Corvette felt pretty good on the test day. I did a decent amount of simulator work since then and I think we’ve got some improvements to make it it.

“Hopefully we can get the car dialed in and make it feel nice and enjoy the 24 hours.”

Sims, who races the Corvette full-time in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, downplayed any significant benefits he can bring to the Malaysian-based team, in its first year with the Pratt Miller-built machine.

“They know the score of what to do in general, but it’s just in terms of being able to give little pointers here and there with some setup work but also standard procedures that the drivers need to be on top of for certain race situations,” he said.

“There’s some that you can fast track that learning so they don’t have to encounter that problem to then react to it and then learn.

“With the engineering of Pratt Miller behind the scenes, they’ve helped the team get up to speed pretty quickly as you could see from GT World Challenge Asia.

“We turned up in Sepang with a few days of testing and were immediately fighting where the team deserved to be in terms of their capabilities. They got up to speed quickly.”

Sims Enjoying “Nice Feeling” of Racing Corvette Globally

The Englishman said he’s been enjoying being part of the Corvette’s global GT3 program.

“It’s really cool to now do other racing outside of IMSA, which is still in the car you get into and feel completely familiar straight away,” he said.

“I did Spa 24 last year with JMR but that was in a Mercedes. I know Spa perfectly well but suddenly you’re thrown into a new situation where you don’t know the car and it’s really an uphill battle, if you don’t gel with that car quickly because track time is limited.

“Last year I found it really quite tough.

“To work with Steller at Barcelona; I helped them with the shakedown there. That was lovely to get in brand-new cars that feel perfectly familiar given a few things here and there.

“Then with JMR, to be able to do some other racing outside of IMSA, still in a Corvette, it just means you can arrive at a track and just get straight down to business, thrashing the car to the limit straight away and you feel comfortable. It’s a nice feeling.”

Source: Sports Car 365