After a year or two of teases, Callaway Competition at last debuted the first GT3-spec Corvette C7 race cars in Germany’s ADAC GT Masters championship races last weekend at Oschersleben. The trio of big-winged ‘Vettes raced under the official Callaway banner and in two races, managed a pair of Top 10 finishes in a 30-car field with a 7th place in the first race and a 6th in the second. That may not sound terribly impressive, but the lead car started the second race from the front row before getting spun and then clobbered in the race’s first turn.
Frenchman Jules Gounon missed the second race’s pole by just 0.2 second after a disappointing 14th-place finish in the weekend’s first race. His teammate Daniel Keilwitz, a former ADAC GT champion for Callaway with the old C6 GT3 car, unfortunately got turned around in Oschersleben’s Turn 1 chicane by the Grasser Racing Lamborghini, where the shiny new blue-and-white Corvette bodywork then got crumpled by both Attempto Racing Lambos. (The Race 2 summary below shows the wreck after a minute or so of interview in German).
Callaway’s second car with Patrick Assenheimer and Dominik Schwager turned in both of the team’s top 10s with solid driving. The third car wore familiar Whelen Engineering colors and featured American favorite Boris Said along with 18-year-old Dutch phenom Loris Hezemans, who is stepping up this year from a touring-car ride in 2015. That car had a rough weekend of qualifying, but in-race performance saw them pick up a few spots.
We look forward to seeing more of the C7 GT3-R, although it’s hihgly unlikely they’ll ever race stateside in an official capacity. With American heavyweights Pratt & Miller building General Motors’ GTE (Corvette C7.R) and GT3 (Cadillac ATS-V GT3) efforts stateside, the Callaways are verboten from competing stateside against their Cadillac counterparts in an agreement with GM. The previous-generation Corvette C6 GT3-R raced almost exclusively in the ADAC championship with Callaway so we’re likely to see the new car in the GT Masters championship exclusively.
The Callaway C7 GT3-R runs an APP Racing 6.2-liter LS9 engine with restrictors that squeeze off the power from 650 horsepower down to about 530 to meet the GT3 balance of performance requirements. Regular Callaway designer Paul Deutschman penned the GT3 car’s new shape, which also includes huge exit scoops on the hood and can’t-miss-it-sized rear wing.
(Photos: Callaway Competition)
