The six-year wait for a revolutionary icon

The eternal all-American sportscar, the Chevrolet Corvette, has been given much more than just a facelift. An icon of a car that has had its engine mounted up front through seven design generations dating back to 1953 is now mid-engined. Purists may object, but there have been no complaints from the team tasked with turning the new C8 Corvette into a racing car.

In fact, they were jumping for joy at Corvette Racing, the Pratt & Miller-run operation based near Detroit that has been responsible for the Chevys that have competed in North American sportscar racing since 1999 and at the Le Mans 24 Hours since 2000. That was nearly six years ago and the fruits of an unusually long gestation period will be on show as the new C8.R GT Le Mans class contender makes its debut in the Daytona 24 Hours IMSA SportsCar Championship opener this weekend.

"As rumours of the consideration of a mid-engine car were floating around, the race guys kept asking if it was true," recalls Corvette chief engineer Ed Piatek, who has led development of the road car. "They were certainly encouraging us to make this decision."

The race team might not have driven the configuration change, but the logic behind it holds true across both road and race car. Chevrolet had reached the limit of performance with the C7 and its ultimate derivative, the ZR1, just as Pratt & Miller knew that the C7.R racer built to the GTE regulations had its deficiencies.

"We had gotten to the point where we were adding more power but we weren't adding more performance, so we decided this was the right time to create an all-new, revolutionary Corvette that was mid-engined," continues Piatek. "Of course, all the physics that work for the street car also make the race car better."

Corvette Racing team manager Ben Johnson recalls "a sense of excitement" within the race operation when it was confirmed to them that the latest Corvette would have its engine in the middle. They knew it was going to be a "big advantage in terms of the weight distribution and aerodynamic packaging".

It's not that Pratt & Miller believed that the front-engined concept had had its day. Johnson points out that the C7.R was introduced in 2014, which meant it pre-dated all its opposition last season by some margin. Yet just as significant was the fact that the car only underwent an evolution, an update rather than a redesign, when new rules offering more freedoms were introduced two years later across the GTE Pro class in the World Endurance Championship and GTLM in IMSA.

The long gestation for the C8.R - the fifth racing Corvette to emerge from the Pratt & Miller workshops - reflects the involvement of the company from the beginning of the design phase of the road car

"Had we started from scratch with the front-engined architecture, I'm sure we would have had the ability to further optimise to the new regulation set," he explains. "However, having the engine in the middle allows us to push the envelope even further."

Corvette Racing stalwart Oliver Gavin reveals that the C7.R was short of front downforce in comparison to its rivals from Porsche, BMW, Ferrari et al as its career drew to a close. And that meant, he says, "we could rarely run maximum rear downforce" as the team sought to balance the car.

"Everything is limited with the engine cradle in a front-engined car, so you are always battling the packaging constraints versus what the aero team would like to do," says Johnson. "You come to the best compromise, but you realise you've left something on the table."

There will also be benefits in wet conditions courtesy of the rearward shift in the weight distribution. That's an important factor according to Johnson: "When we saw rain coming with the old car, we always knew we would be in for some damage limitation in terms of track position. We haven't run with the opposition in the wet yet, but we are confident that the C8.R will be a better car in those conditions."

The long gestation for the C8.R - the fifth racing Corvette to emerge from the Pratt & Miller workshops - reflects the involvement of the company from the very beginning of the design phase of the road car. Information flowed both ways over the course of a collaboration between the Chevy road and race operations that set a new mark in Corvette history.

"I can tell you that I first sat in a meeting with Corvette Racing about this architecture six years ago and there have been meetings multiple days every week since," reveals Piatek. "The race car guys were really keen on making it understood where they had freedom and where they had to follow the production car closely. We did make many decisions on the street car that helped enable a better race car right from the outset."

And vice versa, stresses Piatek. Chevrolet has never been slow to big up the 'racing improves the breed' credentials of the Corvette Racing programme, but he points out that one generation of racing Corvette would feed into the road car development of the next. This time around Pratt & Miller's expertise was brought into play by the road car team in the design of the C8.

"We have two outboard front radiators in the street car, primarily so we can have as much storage space as possible in the front trunk," says Piatek by way of an example. "The race team helped model our outboard radiators so we can be as efficient as possible, exiting the airflow better either under the car or through the wheel well to reduce lift and drag.

"The race car has no trunk and a central radiator, but they have been instrumental in helping us with their tools in making the street car better, even where there are differences between the road and race car."

"There will be disappointment if we are not winning races this season. Whether that's before Le Mans in June or after, only time will tell" Oliver Gavin

The programme got up to a full head of steam at Pratt & Miller over the winter of 2016/17. The first C8.R, which like its predecessor is powered by a normally-aspirated V8, hit the track at Road America in August 2018. Between that test and the maiden run at Daytona last November for the pair of C8.Rs that will race this weekend, the development vehicle completed more than 4000 miles. The two race cars have now completed a similar mileage between them in the wake of the so-called Roar pre-Daytona test at the start of this month.

The two C8.Rs racked up 341 laps that were described as "mainly trouble-free" by Chevrolet, the best of the Corvettes ending up third fastest in the hands of Gavin's full-season IMSA team-mate, Tommy Milner. The car that Marcel Fassler will again share in the IMSA enduros - and, though it hasn't been announced, Le Mans - was just over a tenth down on James Calado in the pace-setting Risi Competizione Ferrari.

The second Corvette of full-season drivers Antonio Garcia and Jordan Taylor and new enduro signing Nicky Catsburg (pictured above) brought up the rear of the seven-car GTLM field. Garcia's time in the qualifying session that set the pit allocation for the race was still less than half a second off the pace.

Gavin isn't sure where Chevrolet will be in pecking order as it goes up against reigning champion Porsche, BMW and Ferrari this weekend. And he certainly isn't predicting another Corvette Racing win at Daytona to go with its GTLM triumphs in 2015 and 2016, not to mention its surprise 2001 overall victory.

"We know where we are, but we don't know how much the game has moved on," he says. "We're going in with our eyes wide open in the expectation that something we haven't covered off in testing jumps out at us.

"There is so much to still figure out. It is often only when you get into the heat of battle that you start to really pick up on certain things.

"We're not making bold predictions ahead of Daytona, but there will be disappointment if we are not winning races this season. Whether that's before Le Mans in June or after, only time will tell."