Oliver Gavin's Corvette Racing highlights

After 19 seasons as a full-time driver for Corvette Racing, Oliver Gavin will line up for this weekend's Daytona 24 Hours in the unfamiliar environment of the Vasser Sullivan Lexus GTD team.

The 2020 IMSA SportsCar Championship finale at Sebring was Gavin's final ride as part of the GM factory team, bringing down the curtain on one of the most successful driver-team collaborations in modern sportscar racing history.

The partnership collected five Le Mans 24 Hours class victories, six class titles in the American Le Mans Series/IMSA and class wins in all of the major US sportscar classics, including Daytona, the Sebring 12 Hours and Petit Le Mans.

Along the way, there were intense fights with the Prodrive-run Aston Martin Racing GT1 programme and later, the full might of works teams from Ferrari, Porsche, Ford and BMW to name but a few.

The 1991 McLaren Autosport BRDC Award winner looks back fondly on his time in yellow and picks out his most prized highlights.

A gamble to get going, Homestead 2000

The Oliver Gavin Corvette Racing story started with a gamble. A 10-grand gamble. In April 2000, the Brit cleared his building society account of his and wife Helen's savings, strapped the money to his belly and boarded a plane bound for Miami.

The money paid for his first race at the wheel of a sportscar at the Homestead Grand-Am event. It was a way of getting his foot in the door of a new discipline at a time when his career in Europe was faltering. It ended up paying off handsomely when Gavin landed a factory Chevrolet contract little more than a year and a half later on the back of his early efforts on the other side of the Pond.

"It was seat-of-the-pants stuff; golly was it a gamble," recalls Gavin. "My wife, Helen, was carrying our daughter Lily at the time and she was saying only the other day that she couldn't have been thinking straight because of her condition to allow me to take that money."

"That's probably the best money I've ever spent in my life. It turned out to be a good investment" Oliver Gavin

The deal to drive a Lola-Ford B2K/10 run by expat Brit Phil Creighton's team alongside car owner Scott Schubot had been forged by Keith Wiggins, for whose Pacific Formula 1 squad Gavin had nominally been test driver. He was now heading up Lola's American operation and looking to show off the company's latest prototype design.

Gavin took fourth together with Schubot on the Homestead 'roval' and, just as importantly, Wiggins sold one of the new Lolas to Jon Field. His Intersport team would field Gavin in a further six races in North America that season.

It was during another appearance with Intersport the following year at Watkins Glen that Corvette driver Ron Fellows handed a piece of paper to Gavin, who'd already proved his credentials aboard GTS machinery by beating the Chevys to class victory at the Sebring 12 Hours and pole at the Le Mans 24 Hours, driving a Saleen run by the Konrad team.

The scrap had Corvette Racing programme manager Doug Fehan's name and number written on it. A call was made, a test arranged, and Gavin put his name to Corvette Racing contract for 2002.

"That's probably the best money I've ever spent in my life," he says. "It turned out to be a good investment."

A winning start, Sebring 2002

The initial contract for Gavin at Corvette Racing encompassed the three enduros in the American Le Mans Series, plus Le Mans. He made a flying start with his new employer, winning GTS first time out at Sebring with new team-mates Fellows and Johnny O'Connell aboard a Chevrolet Corvette C5-R.

"It was a bit daunting, because I was definitely the new boy in the team alongside two established drivers," recalls Gavin, who took an eight-lap victory with Fellows and O'Connell over the Konrad Saleen in which he had won the previous year. "Yes, we won our class, but I didn't think of it being easy or hard. I was just looking to do my job, get my head down and see where we ended up.

"I knew I had to deliver: I could see all the ingredients were there in terms of the car and the team, so it was up to me to do my bit. But to make a winning start to my Corvette career was brilliant."

Three in a row at the big one, Le Mans 24 Hours 2006

A hat-trick of victories was completed by Gavin and team-mates Olivier Beretta and Jan Magnussen in 2006. They'd triumphed in GTS with the C5-R in 2004, again in 2005 with the new C6.R in a class renamed GT1, and then made it three in a row in 2006.

"It was one of the hottest Le Mans I've done, and in the end the heat played into our hands. We won it on reliability" Oliver Gavin

"I took immense satisfaction out of that win," says Gavin, who claimed his best overall finish at Le Mans with fourth position that year. "The hat-trick was important, but what made it so special was that we did it with the same group of guys - the same drivers and the same car crew."

Also important was the intensity of the fight with the Aston Martin Racing squad. The DBR9 had the edge on speed, while the C6.R was able to go longer on the fuel, and the battle was only resolved in the closing hours when the best of the British cars shared by Stephane Sarrazin, Pedro Lamy and Stephane Ortelli ran into clutch problems.

"It was an intense battle and there was some fantastic racing along the way," explains Gavin. "They were in their second year with that car and were really strong. It was one of the hottest Le Mans I've done, and in the end the heat played into our hands. We won it on reliability."

The sweetest title, American Le Mans Series GT crown 2012

Gavin rates his 2012 GT ALMS crown in his first season paired with Tommy Milner, who'd joined the squad the previous season, as the best of the five titles he won with the General Motors marque. He places it above a hat-trick of GT1 crowns in the series racked up with Beretta in 2005-07 and another, again with Milner, in the IMSA SportsCar Championship in 2016.

"There have been years, like 2016, when we were a bit up-and-down, but I'd say 2012 was a stronger year in terms of my performances and my consistency," says Gavin of a season in which he and Milner won four races in the GT2-spec C6.R 'Vette.

"I felt I really got to grips with the car and understood what was needed from the Michelin tyre at all the tracks. That chassis really seemed to click with me and my style. I felt very comfortable with the car, the tyre and my position in the team. It was perhaps the sweet spot in my Corvette career."

He reckons the Mid-Ohio race is probably the favourite of his four victories that year against opposition from Ferrari, Porsche, BMW and Chrysler's SRT brand, as well as Lotus.

"I was really in the zone that day," recalls Gavin, who ended up crossing the line just a couple of tenths up on the Flying Lizard Porsche shared by Jorg Bergmeister and Patrick Long. "Mid-Ohio is a place where you've got to hit every mark; any tiny little mistake and you are punished."

Solo car soaks up the pressure, Le Mans 24 Hours 2015

"A massive rollercoaster." That's how Gavin describes Corvette Racing's Le Mans campaign in 2015. The Pratt & Miller-run team was reduced to one entry when Jan Magnussen crashed heavily in the sister car during qualifying on Thursday evening, but the team rallied, and Gavin, Milner and Jordan Taylor came through to claim the GTE Pro class win.

PLUS: Memories from Corvette's two decades at Le Mans

"Jan's accident really shook the team - it rocked us back on our heels," says Gavin. "But the team pulled together and everyone put their shoulder to the wheel to give our car the best possible chance of victory."

"You'd prefer to make a pass fair and square, but making sure your car hangs together is all part of endurance racing" Oliver Gavin

The #64 Chevy C7.R battled with the factory AF Corse Ferrari of Gianmaria Bruni, Giancarlo Fisichella and Toni Vilander for the better part of 10 hours. A gearbox problem for the Italian car in the penultimate hour left the way clear for Corvette Racing to take an emotional victory.

"I remember being 17 seconds behind some time in the last couple of hours and getting the instructions to push hard," recalls Gavin. "We were making small gains and it was going to be nip-and-tuck. I passed the Ferrari out of Mulsanne Corner when it started having its problem. You'd prefer to make a pass fair and square, but making sure your car hangs together is all part of endurance racing.

"Tommy and Jordan rose to the challenge, Jordan in particular because in previous years he hadn't been so confident with the car and the track. I was in the car at the end so did the burnout across the line."

In-house battle to the line, Daytona 24 Hours 2016

Chevrolet, or rather GM, set up one of the most amazing finishes in the history of the Daytona 24 Hours in 2016. The message from the very top of the company was that its two C7.Rs, with Gavin and Antonio Garcia at the wheel, could race to the line for GT Le Mans honours. The only instruction was not to take each other out.

The Brit, who was teamed with Milner and Marcel Fassler, hit the front shortly after taking over the car for the final time, but the Corvette that Garcia shared with Jan Magnussen and Mike Rockenfeller was looming ever closer in his mirrors courtesy of a string of fastest laps as the clock ticked down.

"I knew Antonio was coming and boy, he was fast in that car: he could find time from God knows where," recalls Gavin. "I was told over the radio that we could race. That was the instruction from on high: Mark Reuss, president of GM, was there in the pitbox. But they said that if there was any contact they'd have to call it and one of us would be unhappy.

"I thought he'd got me just before the end. He'd towed up around me on the banking through Turn 1, but left his braking just a little bit too late to try to finish off the pass. He ran wide ever so slightly and I managed to get inside him. If the race had gone one more lap I think he would have got me because he was so close across the line. The margin was just 0.034s at the chequered flag."

Ton up for Corvette Racing, Lime Rock 2016

It was fitting that Corvette's longest-serving driver should be at the wheel when the team notched up its 100th victory, at Lime Rock in 2016. Gavin came out on top in a late-race battle with Giancarlo Fisichella in the Risi Competizione Ferrari to secure a win for the #4 Chevy C7.R.

"Tommy and I shared out the honours evenly in terms of having a big influence on the result of the races we won in 2016 on the way to the championship" Oliver Gavin

"I'd won nearly half of those races with the team, so it was very satisfying to bring the car home," recalls Gavin, who ended up winning by just under a second from Garcia in the second Chevy. "I think I drove well that day and managed the resources of the car.

"Tommy and I shared out the honours evenly in terms of having a big influence on the result of the races we won in 2016 on the way to the championship. I got the headlines at Daytona, and Tommy really earned the victory at Sebring, then I got the win at Lime Rock, and then he somehow got the car over the line first at Road America when he was fifth at the final restart with three laps to go. That was quite an extraordinary race in an extraordinary season."

A fond farewell, Sebring 12 Hours 2020

When Gavin drove into the Sebring International Raceway on the morning of his last appearance as a full-timer at Corvette Racing aboard the new mid-engined C8.R that came on stream in 2020, he spotted a banner on the bridge over the Florida track's daunting Turn 17. It read, 'Oliver, thanks for the memories'.

His words to wife Helen sitting alongside him were, "Do you think that's for me?" Good friend Garcia, sitting in the back, was quick with his response.

"He was laughing and said, 'Of course it's for you! Who else is it going to be for?'" recalls Gavin. "I was touched by what the track had done, but that weekend was real lump-in-the-throat time for me.

"I battled through a lot of stuff emotionally as I came to terms with the fact that it was going to be my last race as a full-timer. There were so many memories rushing around my head."