Formal: WTR’s First Lamborghini GTD Win “A Long Time Coming”

Photo: Lamborghini

Wayne Taylor Racing’s first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory with Lamborghini has been a “long time coming” according to Danny Formal, who along with Trent Hindman scored top GTD class honors in Sunday’s Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Formal, a Lamborghini Young Professional driver, overcame an early race spin to record his first career WeatherTech Championship win, coming in his and the team’s second full season of GTD competition.

“It was a crazy race,” he said. “I got t-boned going into Turn 9 fighting for second at the start. Got on the back foot there and had to drive the whole stint with a broken rim. The vibration was abnormal.

“The team told me to keep on going and push through. [I] kind of had no feeling on my right arm and leg due to the vibration but the car was fantastic at race pace. We knew that coming in.”

Formal then went long into his stint, pitting while running in second with just under two hours to go.

A call from the pit box to keep Hindman out paid off with subsequent full course cautions helping the team’s strategy and giving Hindman clear sailing to Lamborghini’s first WeatherTech Championship win of the season.

“Whatever those Wayne Taylor Racing guys up on that pit box tell me, I believed. I trust them,” said Hindman.  “They said we had it and I had all the faith in the world in them.

“The guys over the wall and Danny – they did an amazing job. I have been on the wrong side of these kind of races enough to know you what you have to do to get it and that is exactly what we did.”

Formal, likewise, credited the call from the top of the pit box as one of the keys to victory.

“The guys at Wayne Taylor Racing, everyone on that stand, we really truly deserve this win,” he added. “We have had it close so many times this season.

“Trent did fantastic, had to drive two hours without water; he is an iron man. So proud of him, so proud of the team, so proud of DEX.

“We really deserved this win. This program is fantastic and it has been a long time coming.”

The Indianapolis-based team claimed multiple titles in Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America but Sunday’s win was its first with the Italian manufacturer in open GT competition.

“This is a win that has been a long time coming and one we have been waiting for,” said team principal Wayne Taylor.

“The team’s execution was fantastic, and the grit and strategy called, shows the passion that everyone in our team brings to this program.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John