TAYLOR: A Podium That Felt Like a Victory

And just like that, the season is underway. I feel like there is always so much preparation and hype coming into the Rolex 24 and just in the blink of an eye, it’s all over.

It’s been a hectic off season for myself and everyone at WTR Andretti. The team is obviously going through a major transformation by going from the one car team to now running two Acura ARX-06 GTP cars as well as the Lamborghini GTD car.

For myself, I’m coming back to prototypes after four years of GT racing and it’s been quite the transition to GTP.

It’s been a lot to learn, but a fun new challenge. We had two tests before coming to Daytona to get a feel for things. The first impressions were pretty drastic. These new cars make the old DPi class feel like we were racing historics. There is just so much going on now inside the race car and the driver has so many tools to influence what the car is doing.

We came into Rolex weekend knowing we were going to have a pretty tough weekend. We went through the whole Roar event struggling for outright pace. The conditions between the two weeks were completely different, with race week being warm, so tire deg seemed like it was going to be the name of the game.

We rolled off P5 and P6 with our two Acuras. Right from the green flag we were a little out of touch with the front of the race. We knew that our only chance to fight for anything in this year’s race was going to be by staying out of trouble.

My first time in the car was just after sunset. It was my first time being back in a prototype in ‘anger’ in race conditions. I loved the feel of being back in the faster class and racing through the traffic. It’s a much different style of racing from what you get in GT.

I always felt that the racing in GT was a little more mentally draining vs the prototype, but physically the prototype is a little more intense.

I had some fun battles through the night, but you’re always kind of reminding yourself there’s no real reason to be fighting hard on track for position. We were just trying to stay in touch on the lead lap to have a shot in the last few hours.

We had a few small hiccups through the night, I think we lost a lap on two different occasions but were able to get that back rather quickly thanks to some good strategy calls.

On one instance Louis actually got out of the car on track and had to push some buttons to get things rolling again. (I only found that out about an hour after the race.)

By sunrise the picture was becoming a little clearer of where things were settling out. Through the race it was sometimes hard to tell who had pace. We are very limited on tires during the race, so it was sometimes hard to tell who was on new tires vs who was double stinting.

One stint you could feel like a hero and others you’d feel like you forgot how to drive when guys are just pulling away from you.

We came up to the final hour of the race and we were right where we needed to be.
We knew we still didn’t have the car to battle for the win, but just being there in contention gives you a chance. We were sitting third and then the yellow came out with about 30 minutes to go.

We were kind of torn on whether this was good or bad for us. The good thing is that we are close to the front now on the final restart, the bad part is that the 6 car would now restart right behind us, and had been quicker all race long.

Louis did a masterful last stint to hold the 6 car off and get us on the final step of the podium.

We realistically had a 7-8th place car on pace all race long, but with the work of everyone at WTR Andretti, Acura, HRC and all of my teammates, the final step of the podium felt like a little victory.

When we look back on the season, these are the days that set you up well for a championship. We were in the war this weekend, but not in the battle. We will come back to Sebring to hopefully be in contention to fight for that win.

Overall, it was a great first weekend back with the team. It was also my first event with everyone at Acura and HRC. They are a group of racers with a huge drive for success.

Racing is an inherent part of their culture. We weren’t able to get another win this year at the Rolex, but we kept the streak alive of having an Acura on the podium for the fourth year in a row.

Sebring can’t come soon enough.