Manoli Katakis 
Corvette Racing has been a motorsports entity for 25 years. Officially the factory sports car program for General Motors, it has long partnered with the motorsports division of Pratt Miller, a Michigan-based defense company. But GM’s racing ambitions for Corvette have outgrown a single team with two cars. As such, the new Corvette Z06 GT3.R that debuted at the 2023 24 Hours of Daytona in January won’t be kept to a single in-house team, but will be sold to qualifying customer teams for $735,000 apiece. This endeavor moves GM to a more managerial, customer support role, and will close the garage on Corvette Racing after the 2023 season.
Except, they won’t.
Without much explanation one way or the other, it was recently made official that Pratt Miller Motorsports will essentially inherit the Corvette Racing factory program. Officially called Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports, the team will field a pair of C8 Corvette Z06 GT3.R race cars for the 2024 season, and effectively marks the first official customer team for the new era.
Never mind that Pratt Miller Motorsports primarily developed and will build the Corvette Z06 GT3.R for GM. They’re the customer now, you see. And per the original report from Racer, there’s expected to be at least four Z06 GT3 cars entering IMSA competition next season, with PMM fielding two of them. Additional customer programs are expected in the coming weeks. GM has previously stated that it plans to sell at least 20 Z06 GT3.R customer cars.
“We couldn’t have a better representative than the same group that has been part of the development, build and testing processes for our new Corvette racecar,” said Z06 GT3.R manager Christie Bagnie. “The learnings we will take from testing and competition will flow to our other Z06 GT3.R customer teams to ensure that the Corvette brand is a championship contender around the world.”
The Corvette Z06 GT3.R is now undergoing final homologation testing in Europe after nearly 5,500 miles of testing since September 2022. Additional testing is planned through the summer and fall, which will evaluate the multiple brands of tires used in various GT3-based championships such as WEC, SRO GT World Challenge and the Creventic 24 Hour Series. It’s understood that Corvette Racing by PMM will compete in IMSA.
Through a quarter century, Corvette Racing has amassed 125 race victories to-date, the most recent coming at the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans – the last one for the C8.R − for the team’s ninth class win and its first in GTE-Am. Taking the action back to the USA, the team recently took third at the conclusion of the IMSA Six Hours of The Glen on Sunday.
