The hours are counting down towards the opening round of the 2011 American Le Mans Series and, for Britain\u2019s Oliver Gavin and the GM Corvette Racing team, the moment the green flag drops on Saturday morning can\u2019t come soon enough.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Preparing for the race…<\/strong><\/p>\n With another intensely competitive GT race in prospect, Olly is glad of the additional cockpit time he\u2019s had this year with the Chevrolet Camaro in the Grand-Am series.\u00a0 The two rounds to date, in addition to the concentrated fitness campaign the former sports car champion is undergoing in preparation for a marathon run in April, will give him a race-ready edge over and above many of his rivals.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n After his last race two weekends ago in Homestead, Florida, Olly headed north to Pratt & Miller\u2019s base in Detroit to be fitted into a new seat in the Camaro.\u00a0\u00a0 He explains why this was necessary.\u00a0 \u201cOur cockpit surroundings at Homestead were very hot and difficult to operate in for any length of time so the P & M guys have fitted a new seat and air conditioning system in the car.\u00a0 It took a couple of days to get housed properly as it\u2019s a bespoke item and various parts had to be custom made.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhile I was there I also spent lot of time with the Corvette crew getting prepared for the 12 Hours of Sebring.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of the biggest races of the season for us so there was a lot to get prepared and planned for.\u00a0 Everyone\u2019s really excited about the coming season, and we can\u2019t wait to get going.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n New car, new parts…<\/strong><\/p>\n Oliver continued, \u201cI\u2019ve never seen Pratt & Miller so busy but the guys have managed to achieve a huge amount over the winter.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got some development pieces here this week we\u2019ve been testing over the winter including a new rear fascia and some other bits and pieces like the paddle shift gear change.\u00a0 That\u2019s new for everyone in the GT class with the 2011 regulations.\u00a0 We are also running a new Bosch ECU system and it\u2019s taken a while to get it all integrated and working properly and everyone understanding it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a new dashboard in the car and a new steering wheel so it\u2019s quite different inside the car for us.\u00a0 It\u2019s great, and a big step away from what we\u2019ve had for the last 8 or 9 years.\u00a0 It will be interesting and intriguing to see how every driver deals with it and works with it. It took me about half a day to stop taking my hand off the wheel and going for the gear stick as I was driving around.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got to train your brain to stop doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And new faces…<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As well as a new car and new technical developments, Olly also has a new team mate in the No. 04 Compuware Corvette C6.R alongside him and Jan Magnussen.\u00a0 \u201cRichard [Westbrook] has been great, and from the moment he turned up and starting running with us he fitted right in.\u00a0 He\u2019s pretty relaxed to work with, is a good character and understands sportscars very well.\u00a0 He\u2019s got a very good pedigree and been with other manufacturers before, so knows exactly how to be in and around them.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A huge field and a great race ahead…<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c56 cars is the biggest field ever for me,\u201d acknowledges Olly.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s going to be exceptionally busy \u2013 judging by the test days so far as an example.\u00a0 There\u2019s been lots of red flags and stoppages and inevitably there\u2019s going to be problems with traffic.\u00a0 One of the big issues, I think, is going to be that every class seems to run a similar speed on the straight.\u00a0 Gone are the days when the Peugeot or Audi came whistling past you with some 25 or 30 mhp more on the straight than you. \u00a0Now they are maybe 10 mph faster which is fine but the LMP2 and LMPC cars are virtually the same speed on the straights as us and the GTC cars are exactly the same.\u00a0 You have to get past them in the brake zones or into the corners so it adds another element of challenge to it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe race is going to be exceptionally competitive, just as last year\u2019s GT races were.\u00a0 It looks like the BMW is very fast \u2013 they seem to have done a ton of testing and the Dunlop tyres are working well in the weather conditions we have here now.\u00a0 We feel we\u2019re reasonably close but whether it\u2019s close enough, or we\u2019ve done enough, we just don\u2019t know but we definitely only have one aim in mind and that\u2019s victory.\u00a0 The Porsche looks good, as always, while the Ferrari is a new car so difficult to tell yet how it will measure up.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think they\u2019ll be far away from us time wise and we\u2019ll see how fast everyone really is on Friday afternoon in qualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a9 RIF | Miller Communications<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The hours are counting down towards the opening round of the 2011 American Le Mans Series and, for Britain\u2019s Oliver Gavin and the GM Corvette Racing team, the moment the green flag drops on Saturday morning can\u2019t come soon enough. Preparing for the race… With another intensely competitive GT race in prospect, Olly is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[9],"tags":[5264,5334,5303,5297,2935],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11531"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11532,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11531\/revisions\/11532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}