Corvette aims to throw its weight around on home ground at COTA

With four races to go, the FIA WEC LMGT3 drivers' title battle is in an intriguing spot. Jonny Edgar, Nicky Catsburg and Ben Keating sit first, second and third, despite the fact that they all drive the No. 33 TF Sport Corvette, after Keating missed Imola and Spa and Catsburg sat out São Paulo.

The nearest challengers to Edgar – who is due to complete the season and therefore cannot be overtaken in the standings by his teammates – are the trio in The Bend Manthey’s Porsche: Richard Lietz, Riccardo Pera and Yasser Shahin. They’re 27 points adrift, despite having finished on the podium three times in four races.

The good news from Edgar’s perspective ahead of Corvette Racing’s home race is that no matter what happens this weekend, he cannot lose the lead. The bad news is that the No. 33 is still carrying 36 kilos of success ballast, 18 for winning Le Mans and 18 for leading the standings.

For that reason, Edgar’s hoping to simply bank any points he can to limit the damage if the No. 92 Manthey crew and the No. 69 WRT BMW have a strong weekend.

“It’s not going to be an easy weekend,” the Cumbria-native told RACER. “I think the car’s good; we’re happy; we feel we’ve made a step from last year; it’s more consistent in year three of the program. But I still think we’re in for a difficult weekend, pace-wise. We just have to run clean and make sure we take any points possible. No penalties, no mistakes.”

Edgar hopes that having Texas native Keating, now fully recovered from the elbow injury which ruled him out at the start of the season, as his Bronze-graded driver will make a key difference on his home race.

“He can really set up the race for us. Sometimes yellows mean you lose your advantage, but a lot of times if you have a strong Bronze, you can get good track position so it’s always good to have him in your car. He knows this place so well,” he said.

But as Keating notes, qualifying well and producing fast lap times consistently with the ballast on board will be tougher here than it was at Interlagos.

“I think this is one of those tracks where the weight affects a car more than some others," he said. "As an example, I think the weight affects us here more than it did in Brazil.

“I expect it to be extremely hot on race day, and hopefully that ends up leveling the playing field a little bit. I think the Corvette has been traditionally pretty good on its Goodyear tires, keeps them pretty cool in comparison to some of the other cars in the field.

“We’re hoping we can kind of sneak up on it at the end of the day if we can avoid track limit penalties and just have a clean race.”

There’s more positivity to be found for the TF Sport outfit when looking ahead to the rounds that will close the campaign. With the races at Barcelona and Monza now on the schedule in place of Qatar and Bahrain, Edgar believes it could play into the team’s hands for the critical final stretch of the season.

“When I heard the list of potential replacement circuits, I heard Paul Ricard, Portimao, Barcelona and Monza, and the two I wanted the most were the ones that got selected,” Edgar said. “Those are tracks that I feel will be strong for the team and the car.”

Monza, the setting for the season finale in November, was where the Corvette Racing program secured its last FIA WEC title, back in 2023 with a GTE Am-class C8.R, driven by Keating and Catsburg. Is a repeat of that memorable weekend written in the stars?