Road America has never required much help producing drama. Its long straights, heavy braking zones, high-speed corners, elevation changes, and narrow margins have made the 4.048-mile Wisconsin circuit one of the most demanding stops on the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship calendar. For 2026, IMSA expanded the event into a six-hour endurance race, and the additional distance delivered exactly what might have been expected: changing strategies, repeated cautions, damaged race cars, and a finishing order that remained unsettled until the final minutes.
Through it all, Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports emerged with an important result. Tommy Milner and Nicky Catsburg drove the No. 4 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R to third place in GTD PRO, returning the car to the podium while dramatically reducing the team’s championship deficit.
The weekend began with both factory Corvettes positioned near the front of an exceptionally tight GTD PRO field. Alexander Sims qualified the No. 3 Corvette third with a 2:04.264 lap, while Milner placed the No. 4 sixth. The numerical difference looked larger than the actual performance gap; Milner’s Corvette remained closer to Sims than Sims was to the class pole.
When the six-hour race began Sunday, Milner settled the No. 4 into the lead group and avoided the incidents that quickly began interrupting the event. Two full-course cautions occurred during the opening hour, and a third caution later reshaped several classes as teams were caught by a closed pit lane, penalties, or competing fuel strategies.
Milner and Catsburg remained disciplined. Milner handled the opening portion before turning the Corvette over to Catsburg, who drove the middle phase of the race. At the three-hour mark, the No. 4 ran second in GTD PRO behind the pole-sitting No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R. The Corvette did not appear to possess a decisive pace advantage, but it remained firmly in contention through clean driving, accurate pit work, and a race strategy centered on surviving long enough to attack at the finish.
That approach became increasingly valuable as the race unraveled around them.
The No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Temerario GT3 moved to the front through a combination of consistent pace, well-timed pit calls, and favorable caution periods. Andrea Caldarelli and Sandy Mitchell ultimately delivered the new Temerario its first IMSA victory and its first North American race win. Nick Tandy and Harry King finished second in the No. 77 Porsche, while Milner brought the No. 4 Corvette home third as the race ended under caution following another late incident.
Catsburg believed the final result understated the Corvette’s potential. A late yellow, he explained after the race, likely removed the team from a possible second-place finish or even a fight for the victory. Still, the No. 4 crew had executed without a meaningful error. Every pit stop was completed cleanly, the car remained undamaged, and Milner and Catsburg collected the points available to them rather than sacrificing the result in a desperate attempt to force an opportunity.
The same fortune did not follow the sister Corvette.
Sims and Antonio Garcia divided the first four hours in the No. 3 Z06 GT3.R and remained part of the competitive GTD PRO field. With just under two hours remaining, however, contact following a restart sent Sims into the gravel at Turn Three and damaged the Corvette’s right-rear corner. The Pratt Miller crew returned the car to competition, but it lost six laps during the recovery and repairs. Garcia and Sims were eventually classified 10th in GTD PRO.
The customer Corvette teams experienced similarly eventful afternoons. DragonSpeed produced its strongest finish of the season with the No. 81 Corvette shared by Giacomo Altoé, Casper Stevenson, and Alec Udell. Altoé appeared to complete a pass for third shortly before the final caution, but IMSA’s review determined that the move occurred after the yellow had been displayed. The ruling placed the No. 81 fourth in GTD—still an encouraging result after the car remained among the class leaders for much of the race.
The No. 13 Corvette entered by 13 Autosport finished seventh in GTD after Matt Bell, Lars Kern, and Orey Fidani overcame late contact and a significant loss of track position. Bell recovered 11 positions during his closing double stint, while the result returned Fidani to the lead of the Bob Akin Award standings. That championship carries particular significance because its winner receives an automatic invitation to the following year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.
DXDT Racing’s No. 36 Corvette also lost a possible top result through contact. Mason Filippi and Robert Wickens completed double stints before Charlie Eastwood took over for the finish. Eastwood was running seventh when another car struck and spun the Corvette, dropping it to 14th in GTD. Wickens’ participation also marked another competitive outing for the Corvette equipped with the hand-control system developed to accommodate the injuries he sustained in 2018.
For the No. 4 team, the podium carried consequences extending well beyond the trophy. Milner and Catsburg entered Road America 108 points behind GTD PRO championship leaders Connor De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen. After the Paul Miller Racing BMW finished 11th, the Corvette pairing left Wisconsin only 15 points from the lead. Chevrolet also increased its advantage in the GTD PRO Manufacturers Championship to 105 points with three races remaining.
Corvette Racing has won its class eight times at Road America, but Sunday’s third-place finish was not built upon dominance. It came from restraint, consistency, rapid work in the pit lane, and the ability to remain intact through six hours of increasingly aggressive racing. The No. 4 Corvette did not leave Elkhart Lake with the victory, but it departed with something nearly as valuable: a clean race car, another podium, and a championship fight that had been transformed in a single afternoon.
The battle resumes August 23 at Virginia International Raceway, where Milner, Catsburg, and the No. 4 Corvette will arrive no longer trying to rescue their season, but positioned to take control of it.
CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R POST-RACE DRIVER QUOTES
TOMMY MILNER, NO. 4 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: “A great points today for us. The 77 in front of us was already close to us and is even closer to us now. But we did make some headway on the BMW. That’s racing. Some years nothing goes your way, some years everything goes your way and sometimes it’s up and down. It seems like it’s that way for a lot of cars this year… some ups and downs. You have to make the most of these weekends that are in your favor and take the points when you can get them. I’m a bit disappointed in the general driving standards across the board. The fans deserve a little bit more than that after last year and now in a six-hour race. But I was very happy with our Corvette today. We did everything right with good strategy and good pit stops. No issues today at all, so I’m very proud of the team for that.”
(On the race length) “It’s so cool to do six hours here. It’s the right track for a longer endurance race like this one. The fans here are amazing. I think the number is like 31 percent more fans this year than last year. It is, in my opinion, the best IMSA racing track we go to all year long. Some events may be a little better and some tracks are more exciting in some ways. But when you think about multi-class racing, Road America is the best. You’ve got big, long brake zones, nice high-speed sections. This is a staple of sports car racing and should be for a long time.”
NICKY CATSBURG, NO. 4 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: “I think we got unlucky with one of the yellows late because otherwise I think we would have finished P2 or in the fight for P1. But that’s just the way IMSA is sometimes. It can be a little bit of a lottery. But the main thing is that our pitlane work was amazing. The guys did great today. The car is like new! Tommy didn’t touch anyone! It’s a very good day for us and a good points haul. This is exactly how we planned to do it. We didn’t want to take big risks. It’s a bit of an eye-opener today, the way you can get results in IMSA, as well. I’m really happy and pleased with the crew work. All our stops were on it. We do need to look at some stuff to improve. It seems some of the others are able to save a lot of fuel and beat us in the pitlane. We’ll figure that out, and it’s been a great day today.”
ALEXANDER SIMS, NO. 3 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: “There were a lot of cars and not a lot of space. All through Turn One, it was very congested and we got through there OK. It felt even more congested going into Three. I knew I had a Porsche on the inside of me, and then I was right behind the 65. He was holding mid-track and so I braked to the outside and in hindsight that was the wrong thing to do. It was a bit messy. I also don’t sit here and think I wasn’t smart for doing it. I took a risk and it didn’t pay off this time. But I’m very pleased for the 4 car guys. They closed up so much in the points with the BMW’s troubles. It seems like we had a long list of issues in this race with refueling, with radio and whether or not we could have made it into the pitlane with Antonio on a late call. Unfortunately Road America is still a place where I haven’t had a good result. I love it but I need to get a good result here next year.”
CASPER STEVENSON, NO. 81 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: “I’m happy with the result even though we were close to the podium. We were in the mix all day, which was a great feeling. I feel we got a bit unlucky with so many people taking gambles that weren’t in the fight and then with all the yellows they were in the fight. We managed to still overcome that.”
ALEC UDELL, NO. 81 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: “The key in IMSA is always track position. Casper did a great job in qualifying to put the car toward the front. Being there and being able to fight there, you can control the race a lot better. There was some pit stop strategy there at the end, but the team called a great race and we were on the right strategy all the way through. We had great stops each time and a really good car. Giacomo had a couple of really awesome restarts to put us back in the fight with a couple of cars that took a gamble on strategy. That’s how it is. Sometimes you get lucky. We played a very clean-cut race and I’m really happy for the performance of the DragonSpeed guys. I know they’ve been pushing hard for this kind of result all year.”
MATT BELL, NO. 13 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: “There were some positives to take away from today. We won the Akin award and retook the lead in the championship, which is our primary objective to get back to Le Mans. But there was a much better result on the table for us today. The crew did an amazing job. Lars had a fantastic stint and Orey did a great job to get us to third with two hours. Then there was IMSA carnage again on a restart. I got contact from the rear that put me into someone on the front which dropped me from third to last. I think we had the win in the cards today. 13 Autosport gave me the best GTD car today. The Corvette was on fire all weekend. It’s a result that’s gotten away. That’s bittersweet but happy to walk away with the Akin lead.”
ROBERT WICKENS, NO. 36 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: “The team has done an amazing job. Just to get the hand controls into the car for this weekend was a huge undertaking. My first stint was not my best product, per se. But in the second stint I was much happier with the car. The team made a setup change on the pitstop, which was amazing they could do that in the race. It really transformed the car for my second stint and I made up four or five spots so that was fun going door-to-door and racing hard out there. We were struggling a lot for rear grip, kind of entry to middle and exit of the corner. We made a change to the front end of the car and that helped a lot.”
