IMSA: No Porsche payback, says Corvette

Don't look for payback from the Corvette Racing team when it comes across the Porsche that stole its 100th victory last weekend in Long Beach.

The hit by factory Porsche driver Fred Makowiecki that robbed Corvette's Tommy Milner of the win caused great tension between the teams, and RACER has learned the series intends to bring both teams together next week in Monterey to ensure retribution is not on the menu.

Corvette Racing program manager Doug Fehan says intervention by IMSA's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship leadership to keep Makowiecki and his Porsche safe is not required.

"I can tell you that as a full-fledged Chevrolet factory program, regardless of the justification for it, or how much they might deserve it, or how fair it would be to do something, we don't operate that way," Fehan told RACER. "We take our shots and move forward. We're focused on getting our 100th win."

Corvette and Porsche do have a bit of history at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca dating back to 2009, when Corvette's Jan Magnussen (LEFT), driving one of the team's brand-new ALMS GT2-spec C6.Rs, and Porsche factory driver Jorg Bergmeister, in his works-affiliated Flying Lizard Motorsports 997 GT3 RSR, tangled on the sprint to the checkered flag. The Dane's Corvette was nearly demolished in the incident, and like Long Beach, tempers certainly flared.

And in another Long Beach parallel, Porsche came out ahead in the exchange as the race-leading Corvette was relegated to second in class. Despite past - and recent - history, Fehan points to Corvette Racing's handling of the 2009 Monterey clash as an indicator of how the team will treat Porsche at the April 29-May 1 IMSA event in Monterey.

"If we were after retribution, if that was the case, what would you have seen after Laguna Seca in 2009?" he asked. "Just as we did back then, we're busy making the best Corvette race cars possible to win the next one and the next one after that."

Porsche North America team manager Morgan Brady (who leads the CORE autosport program that fields PNA's IMSA GT Le Mans effort), agrees with Fehan's forward-looking approach, and wants to see both teams move beyond the Milner-Makowiecki incident.

"Yes, absolutely," Brady told RACER. "We were disappointed in how the race came to an end, and we're going to Monterey with a priority of having a clean race and earning maximum points."

Some have questioned whether Makowiecki's graceless maneuver on Milner came as instruction from his team. Fehan disagrees with any notion that Brady or CORE had any involvement in what transpired in Long Beach.

"You have to understand: CORE is one thing," he said. "The factory Porsche drivers are another. I'm not sure how much control CORE has over those guys, and I'm not drawing any correlation between the team and the driver's action."