Among the teams making their debut at this year’s 24 Hours of Spa, Steller Motorsport catches the eye, as the British outfit gives the Corvette Z06 GT3.R its maiden start at SRO’s blue-riband event.
The Buckinghamshire-based squad is fielding the #24 Corvette, freshly wrapped in a brand-new livery, in the Silver Cup, as one of two teams representing the ‘bowtie’ on the American marque’s return to the race for the first time since 2011.
Steller has looked competitive so far this season, headlined by a second-placed finish on their debut at Circuit Paul Ricard. A strong effort at the following round at Monza, compromised by an unfortunately timed mid-race Safety Car, leaves them sitting fourth in the Endurance Cup Silver Teams’ standings ahead of the series’ blue-riband event.
Two of the drivers from that Paul Ricard success, Lorcan Hanafin and Matisse Lismont, will share the car this weekend with Spa 24 debutants Daniel Ali and Olivier Hart.
“We’re going to go and win!” team manager Max Daymond quipped to DSC, before offering a more realistic set of expectations.
“I think for us, at the moment, a class podium would be a great result, but first, we’ve got to finish it.
“That’s the main aim at the moment – a clean, consistent race. Hopefully, no penalties and no mistakes, which is going to be especially difficult during the night hours, trying to keep the drivers energised and fresh. If we can keep a consistent race, clean, no damage, no penalties, we’ve got as good a chance as any of having a decent result.”
This view is mirrored by Hanafin, who is making his second start at the event, having raced for Walkenhorst Motorsport last year.
“Obviously, everyone wants to win, and that’s ultimately the end goal, but finishing the race is a testament to the team, the car and the drivers. The first goal I’d say is to finish, and anything on top of that is positive.”
Spa is set to be the longest race in Steller’s history, with this season’s switch to GT World Challenge Europe comfortably surpassing the race lengths the team has gotten used to in series such as British GT and the Michelin Le Mans Cup. Despite this, Daymond doesn’t feel as if the team is at a particular disadvantage to its more experienced competitors.
“A lot of our crew have done numerous 24-hour races,” he explains. “We’ve got lots of experience in the team, which helps immensely. While as a unit, as a team, it’s our first 24-hour, we’ve got that history already.”
With this experience, Daymond doesn’t feel that Steller’s lack of experience in 24-hour racing provides it with any excuses.
“I don’t think it adds any pressure, I don’t think it reduces any expectation, we approach it the same as any other race.
“We want to be as prepared as we can be, make sure we do everything to the best of our abilities, and if we do that, hopefully we can come out on top.”
This preparation has been an ongoing process since the team took delivery of its new cars in December. Following the standout result at Circuit Paul Ricard, Daymond believes misfortune has disguised the progress the team has made since with the Z06 GT3.R.
“We’ve not been blessed with a huge amount of luck, unfortunately, so that has hindered us slightly.
“We’ve managed to continually improve and try to help the drivers to get the most out of the car. We’re still learning as we go as well, but I think we’re on top of the car now. It’s proven itself to be reliable and the showing that they had at Le Mans as well, two weeks ago, was a great confidence boost for us.
“It’s already won 24-hour races out in America, but for all of the new iterations to come through, all of the development work that GM and PME [Pratt Miller Engineering] have been doing, for them to have pretty much no issues across three cars is great to see.
“We put a lot of effort into every race we do, but being a 24-hour, it does focus the mind a little bit, so we’re also making sure that the crew have got everything they need, that the drivers have got everything that they need, just so that everyone remains fresh and pushing forwards.”
Steller Motorsport forms part of a new-look approach to GT racing from General Motors, which transitioned from being factory-focused to a customer model with the launch of the Z06 GT3.R in 2024.
For Corvette Racing’s GT3 programme manager Jessica Dane, the return of the American brand to the 24 hours of Spa for the first time since the first year of the GT3 era is a key milestone.
“Having cars at Spa will be really exciting,” she tells DSC. “I would love to one day be challenging for overall wins at the likes of Spa, Nürburgring, the IGTC races. But again, that’s something we have to think about with the number of cars that we sell in Europe versus the number of cars that we sell elsewhere. It all has to make sense.
“But when teams like Steller come along and want to do GT World Challenge Europe, then we absolutely 100% back them, and we’ll give them all the support to go and do that.”
For Dane, an assault by Corvette on the full IGTC in the future would be ideal, but it’s a matter of balancing quality and quantity with the Z06 GT3.R programme.
“IGTC is a significant part of the GT3 calendar, and I would love to see us campaigning Corvettes around the world. It can be logistically difficult. If you don’t have a team in Australia, then suddenly the costs of doing Bathurst go up massively.
“It’s something that, being still quite small, is a lot harder for us to compete in than the manufacturers who have cars already with customers all over the world.
“Our customers really appreciate the fact that we are a small programme where we see all of our customers as partners, and we have much closer relationships than they’ve usually been accustomed to. It’s an amount of access that they haven’t experienced before, and that’s definitely something that I want to ensure continues in the programme.”
On Steller’s side, the team can very much feel the benefits of the close relationship Corvette has with its customers.
“We are very fortunate to have people from both GM and PME on site this weekend,” Daymond says. “It has been great. We’ve got a huge team of people on their side which as a collective are available when we go racing or testing.
“On the support side, we are really well catered for, which is helpful when you’re trying to learn a new car, especially when the car is really still in its infancy compared to some of the other manufacturers.”
The Corvette Z06 GT3.R has already won at Daytona and finished on the podium at Le Mans during its sophomore season. Could Steller Motorsport add yet more major silverware to GM’s growing customer programme?
Images courtesy of SRO/JEP
