WEC and officials at Le Mans have already announced the end to the GT Pro class and in 2023 will feature only the GTE Am category.
- Veteran sports car racer Tommy Milner is among a class of professional racers facing and uncertain future due to the upheaval in the GT category.
- Along with the arrival of a new generation of GT3 machines, there’s a movement toward gentlemen drivers.
- The World Endurance Championship and officials at Le Mans have already announced the end to the GT Pro class will be part of one GT3 class for 2023.
On the heels of a victory with Corvette Racing at Monza, Tommy Milner is competing in the WEC’s Fuji round this weekend in Japan, the country where he scored his first professional GT victory in 2009.
But the factory driver’s future remains uncertain due to the upheaval in the GT category. Along with the arrival of a new generation of GT3 machines, there’s a movement toward gentlemen drivers.
“In this world nowadays with so many options for entertainment on a weekend, I think it becomes a bit of an uphill battle if your best product heavily features amateurs,” said Milner of the new direction of GT racing. “Obviously, just my opinion. If IMSA wants to keep growing, which they seem to have been doing over the last couple of years, they need to continue with a professional anchor.”
“If IMSA wants to keep growing … they need to continue with a professional anchor.”
The WEC and officials at Le Mans have already announced the end to the GT pro class and in 2023 will feature only the GTE Am category. The deadline in IMSA for manufacturers to commit to a Pro entry for 2023 falls later this month. No commitments have been announced, including from GM and Corvette Racing, which plans to build customer GT3 race cars for 2024.
This season, five cars and manufacturers have participated regularly in IMSA’s GTD Pro category.
“There’s a big commitment (by General Motors) to the Corvette GT3 car that Pratt & Miller are building and should be testing one day soon,” said Milner, who has an option year remaining for 2023 in his contract. “Obviously racing is still the number one program for (GM and Corvette). It remains to be seen what the actual program will be. If it’s worldwide racing, great. IMSA again, that’s also fantastic.”
A spokesman for Corvette Racing, which raced this year with a C8.R modified to GT3 regulations, confirmed only that the team will be racing. But how many cars and who will drive the new production-based Corvette GT3 in what series and classes has yet to be announced. According to reliable sources, supply line issues will limit the sale of the new production Corvette GT3 despite strong demand from customers, which could affect the racing budget.
Corvette Racing No. 3 is one of just five cars in the GTD Pro class of the IMSA WeatherTech Championship Series to race in all nine races so far this season.
IMSA
So far, Milner says it’s been a fantastic season in his “year abroad” co-driving with Nick Tandy in Corvette Racing’s first full WEC program. By prior arrangement, Milner spent two weeks touring Italy after Monza with his family, which turned out to be a celebration of the team’s first WEC victory in the fourth of six rounds.
Joining Corvette Racing in 2021 for the WeatherTech Championship, Tandy was previously the Porsche driver Milner hated to race against. “Our experience against Nick was that races were always very hard fought. I knew going in what to expect from him, which was a guy who was going to be very fast and give every ounce of energy and talent on the race track. We’ve seen that over the two years that Nick has been with our team.”
It hasn’t been all pandemic travel hassles and nose to the racing grindstone. In the era of battery-assisted racing, this year Tandy set a personal record at Le Mans with his 1/7-scale, radio-controlled Corvette, clocking 117 mph. It was one of those ‘Don’t ask for permission in advance, ask for forgiveness later,” said Milner of the speed run on the pit straight.
After clocking over 100 mph with the scale model in Corvette Racing livery last year during the team’s annual competition at the French 24-hour, Tandy “took the RC car into the garage to talk with the engineers about any ideas they might have about reducing the drag that they might have and fixing instability issues,” said Milner. “There was some tweaking that went on to try to make it more slippery and more stable.”
The race at Fuji will be the first in Japan for Milner since he co-drove with Dirk Mueller to the GT2 class victory on board a BMW M3 in an Asian Le Mans Series race at the Okayama circuit in 2009.
“The experience was incredible,” recalled Milner, who described the fans as passionate and knowledgeable. In addition to presenting photos for autographs, some fans brought Origami figurines of Samurai made from folded paper to bring the team good luck. The tradition is to paint “one eye for good luck and then paint the other eyeball when you come home from success,” said Milner.
“It was quite cool, seeing our names in Japanese figures on the car. It was just one of those experiences that was pretty unique. I have good memories because we had success there.”
Keyword: IMSA's Growth in Gentlemen Drivers Means Uncertain Future for GT Pro Class