Yahoo Autos WTR on staying in the mix: ‘We feel so lucky to be still in the fight’
Daytona seemed a sure indicator that Wayne Taylor Racing was going to have another strong season, just as Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque have taken the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship to the wire the last two years, albeit falling short each time. While they missed standing on the top step of the podium at Daytona with the No. 10 Acura ARX-06 in Victory Lane, they showed pace as the new era of GTP began, and after penalties were applied to Rolex 24 winners Meyer Shank Racing, had the points lead.
Fighting for victory in the latter stages of the 12 Hours of Sebring. Pole and dominance at Long Beach until a pit stop miscue. In both those races, while lunging for the lead, there were disasters and DNFs. Last year WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca produced WTR’s first win of the season. This year they were fourth. Then came a mechanical DNF at the Glen. Finally, Sunday, another second-place finish at Canadian Tire Motorsports park that, had the yellows fallen a bit differently, could very well have been a victory.
Still, Albuquerque and Taylor, in three years together at WTR, haven’t been winless this far into a season. Yet Sunday’s result, with some bad luck by other contenders, have them third in the championship, only 29 points out of first, occupied by Action Express Racing’s Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims. The No. 31 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R fielded by AXR, despite showing good pace, fell afoul of some unfortunate yellows that didn’t jibe with their pit stop strategy, plus Sims had to make an extra trip through the pits when they tried to beat a full-course caution and entered a closed pit lane.
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“We feel so lucky to be still in the fight,” Taylor declared. “The No. 31, they had bad luck today — as much luck as we had to beat that yellow that we weren’t even trying to beat. And for it to be a short yellow on top of that… And for them to enter the closed pit by, like, nothing… That was a lot of luck in our favor, and a lot of bad luck against them. That’s racing, and it comes and goes. Just like the traffic comes and goes, that luck comes and goes and hopefully that’s a sign that our season is headed in the right direction. We don’t expect to get these kinds of days every weekend, so we’re going to need to execute and keep doing these sorts of clean performances the rest of the year and make sure we put in put ourselves in a situation to be lucky more often.”
The fact that WTR has three DNFs, no wins, and is still in the thick of the title fight shows the part that luck plays in motorsports, and perhaps never more than this season in which everyone is dealing with new equipment. Until CTMP, no team has scored a repeat victory, and even then, Meyer Shank Racing doesn’t have the points to reflect two wins.
“We were talking…the other day that we rarely do DNF,” said Albuquerque. “But it happens. And I think this season has been demonstrating exactly that it is ups and downs for everyone. Like Watkins Glen … right after, I think the championship was done for us, because the gap to the Porsche was too much. Then they got penalized and, oh, there’s some hope. And then the No. 31 — they were doing a really good job, but then it just tricked them.
“It’s impressive how it swings back to one side from the other, so I think (it’s) just a good lesson as well — whoever is behind, it’s still possible to go for the front. So we just need to be staying away from problems. I think the team did an amazing job. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t want to jinx this this thing. But I think we covered our strategy in a way that we pitted the first moment that it was possible to (go to) the end. And then, yes, we were lucky that the yellow came on. But we were already there.”
There are three races left for the GTP competitors – Road America, Indianapolis and Petit Le Mans – and it’s still anyone’s fight. The spread between first and fourth in the championship is only 63 points, less than the difference between first and fourth in a single race. And that top four encompasses four different teams and four different manufacturers — a scenario that seemed most unlikely as the season began; almost as unlikely as Albuquerque and Taylor being in the battle with the season they’ve had so far.
