DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports’ newest driver, Marvin Kirchhoefer, has completed his first Driver in the Loop (DiL) simulation sessions. Kirchhoefer joins defending IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) champions Alexander Sims and Antonio Garcia aboard the No. 3 Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
Kirchhoefer was part of the Rolex 24 At Daytona Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) winning lineup in 2025 with AWA, the team now known as 13 Autosport for 2026, aboard its No. 13 Corvette Z06 GT3.R. He shared the winning entry with Matt Bell, Lars Kern and Orey Fidani, in what was the first Corvette customer win for a team other than Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller in IMSA.
“It was really nice being back behind the wheel of the Corvette, so I really enjoyed the test,” Kirchhoefer said. “I was generally quite impressed by the whole setup of the team. I got a nice welcome, too, from my teammates as well. I already knew Nicky (Catsburg) from previous racing before, too. That was very nice and I really, really enjoyed working with them. Everyone has been very supportive and very helpful getting me up to speed within the team and getting reacquainted with the Corvette.”
Kirchhoefer explained his return to a sim after an extended absence.
“I also had the DIL test a couple of weeks ago in Charlotte, which also was quite interesting,” he said. “I haven’t been in a sim for quite some time. It’s not something that I’m used to, I would say. When I was younger, I used to do quite some development back in the day for DTM but that was more than 10 years ago so it’s been a bit of a break for me being in a sim. But I really enjoyed it.
“It was quite impressive with how dedicated everyone was working during those three days. The first day was about getting me into a groove and the second day Tommy (Milner) joined. There were quite a few nice bits of information that took from him. The feedback from the DiL model was very impressive. I mean, it’s always a bit more difficult to get a feeling for adjustments in a simulator than in the actual real car because you are limited to only a few feedbacks that you can take. Most of them will be like visual feedbacks… you don’t really have the tire sound or the feeling of the tire scrubbing and all that.
“It’s not easy to really get it right every time but I must say overall that it has been very good and very positive… good preparation for the Rolex coming up in a couple of weeks. Hopefully we’ve done our parts and our work well and can make it a good 2026 Daytona 24 race.”