TAYLOR: A Missed Opportunity at Road America

Another rollercoaster season and we have found ourselves with only three races to go and an insurmountable gap in the championship. After a brutal end to our Six Hours of The Glen, we were left to only hope for race wins for the remainder of the season.

Our teammates in the number 40 Dex Imaging car were still in with an outside shot of the championship so if we could support their campaign we would do anything possible to do that.

Aside from Jordan being my brother, the relationship between Filipe, Louis, Jordan and me is unlike any two-car team I have ever experienced.

The effort from WTRAndretti and HRC has been to place the focus on creating one team with a common goal of winning a championship. This season has not gone to plan completely, but the cohesiveness and unified pursuit of the goal has been amazing to be a part of.

Everyone is in 100 percent support of a team victory and all ego has been taken out of the equation aside from the competitive nature that helps to push each other to the next level. All that to say, we wanted the 40 to come out of the weekend back in the hunt for the championship.

Practice is always hard to tell where the true performance of the car stands up against the competitors. We looked strong, but always take the good results with a cautious optimism.

It was Jordan and Filipe’s turn to qualify the cars this weekend in Road America and they absolutely killed it. Qualifying at Road America can be very difficult, it punishes you for not getting all of the details just right.

It is a very long lap so making sure you fuel the car exactly how you would like, there are a lot of critical corners that are very lap time sensitive, and the tire peak normally doesn’t give you many opportunities in case you make a mistake on your peak lap.

Filipe got the most out of the session and was able to just pip Jordan for the pole, giving the team our first ever front row lockout!

There were many strategic conversations before the race and endless directions that either car could go with strategy, each one seeming to have just as good of a chance of being a race winning strategy if things went right. The important thing is that we had 2 fast Acuras.

The race started and Jordan took the lead on the exit of Turn 1 with a tidy move down the inside. Almost immediately, the yellow flag came out around the 20-minute mark and the team had to make the first strategic decision of the day. The call was to split the strategies between the 10 and the 40 to cover both possibilities. The 40 dove in to do a driver change, fuel and tires while the 10 car stayed out.

Our goal was to build the gap. Filipe proved how fast our Konica Minolta car was and he opened the gap following the next restart and gave us the buffer we needed upon pitting to come out fighting for the lead of the race.

The yellow came out right as we were passing the Proton Porsche on their out lap, so would restart the second half of the race in second place.

The car was excellent and we were able to pass for the lead and open a gap on each of the subsequent stints. But when the final yellow came out, we needed energy.

Without the yellow, we would have been much more in control of the end of the race as the others started to also need energy. The yellow gave everyone aside from us the energy savings they needed to get to the end. So we were forced to dive to pit lane and add energy and four tires for the restart with 15 minutes to go.

Restarting 9th with 15 minutes to go and four fresh tires, there was nothing to lose. Once the green came out, we got around Van Der Helm before T1 and the BMW and 40 car in T2 after some battling.

Going into T8, diving on the Proton Porsche for P5 and the following lap getting around a wounded Bourdais for P4. Between our excellent car balance and the four fresh new tires, the car was flying on the first two laps after the restart.

Once getting to P4 and the top 3 got some temp in their tires, our challenge became much tougher and overtaking would require traffic to assist a move.

Luckily, the 31 ran slightly wide in T5 with about three laps to go so we could inherit the final podium spot.

When the white flag came out, all hell broke loose and we caught a nasty pack of GT traffic that would last all the way to the checkered flag. Going down the straight between T3 and T5 there were cars thre-wide and dropping wheels in the grass at over 170 mph.

At that point in the race, the risk level had shot through the roof and whatever decision you made about picking a side or finding your way around a GT car became critical.

As we dove into T5, everyone packed up and the two leaders had to pinch the exit at T5 and over slow the apex, which caught me off guard, unintentionally tapping the left rear of the second Penske Porsche.

But as much as I got caught off guard, the cars behind had been even more surprised and the Gradient Acura slammed into the back of our car. 

Going up the hill they were in as much of a fight for position as us and we went side by side all the way through T6. This cost us our last good shot at another overtake and survived to the finish line in P3.

On paper it was a good result when considering the season we’ve had. But with the performance of the car this weekend, it definitely feels like a missed opportunity and leaves us hungry for a home-race win at Indy and a much needed result at Petit Le Mans. See you there.