Oh, Canada! What a Win for Taylor Brothers

The boxscore may look quite simple – a race victory from the pole position for brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor and their No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP for Wayne Taylor Racing at Sunday’s Mobil 1 SportsCar Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ontario.

But a lot had to happen between the opening green flag to the checkered flag of this two-hour, 40-minute TUDOR United SportsCar Championship race for the brothers Taylor to emerge victorious for the second time this season. And a lot had to happen precisely the way it did to enable younger brother Jordan Taylor to cross the finish line a mere .477 of a second ahead of the No. 31 Action Express Racing Corvette DP of Dane Cameron.

Ricky Taylor started from the pole position he earned in qualifying late Saturday and led the opening 28 laps around the 2.459-mile, 10-turn road course that once was home to Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix. But the sleek, black No. 10 Konica Minolta prototype didn’t see the lead again until Jordan Taylor overtook Cameron with less than nine minutes remaining, then held on for dear life as the two young drivers waged a tight battle the rest of the way while negotiating lapped traffic around the ultra-high-speed road course.

“It was a perfect team effort,” Taylor said after his 11th career major North American sports car victory, the same total as his brother. “Ricky had issues with power steering at the beginning so he had a tough stint. Once I got in the car, I was basically just running laps for three stints, not really battling with anyone but listening to what the guys wanted to do, strategy-wise. They called it perfectly with what tires to take, when to pit, and we came out just ahead of the 31 at the end. Like I said, it was a perfect team effort. And it was great to have all of our partners from Konica Minolta and DLL here at this event. I saw them out in turn three during the cooldown lap and they were all cheering. So, it was a great memory for everyone.”

After a seemingly effortless job of jumping out ahead of the field and staying there at the start of the race, Ricky Taylor gradually began experiencing power steering problems during his opening stint and eventually relinquished the lead in traffic to Christian Fittipaldi of the No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP just past the half-hour mark. He pitted from second place under yellow at the 41-minute mark and handed the car over to his younger brother, who rejoined the race in fifth place behind a quartet of cars that included two that were running an alternate strategy.

From that point, Jordan Taylor bided his time in the top-five after the crew made front-end adjustments to minimize the power steering issue, and he hit pit road for a fuel-and-tire stop with 66 minutes remaining in the race that proved to be the turning point in the race. Rather than a planned short fuel fill and two-tire stop to gain track position, engineer Adam Banet called for a full fuel fill and four-tire change and recommended the short-fill take place on the next planned stop. It turned out to be the money call.

Taylor rejoined the race in fourth place and held that position until the field cycled through for a final round of stops that took place with roughly 40 minutes remaining. He took on just two left-side tires and required little time compared to the leaders to take on the fuel required to get to the finish, and he rejoined in fourth place once again.

We talked about it right before the race, what we would do if we needed to short-fill,” Taylor said. “We decided two tires is better than three or four. So, when we did it, I went out of the pits and the car had a funny balance because, obviously, it only had two fresh tires. Once the balance came in, the car was quick and I was setting faster times on the used tires than all new tires.”

With 16 minutes to go, Taylor got by Oswaldo Negri in the No. 60 Michael Shank Racing LMP2 Honda for third place, then moved up to second with 12 minutes to go when Joao Barbosa in the No. 5 Corvette had to pit to replace a left-rear tire that was going down. Up ahead was Cameron in the No. 31 Corvette, who had a more than 30-second lead but still needed to make a final stop for a splash of fuel. That came with nine minutes remaining, and Taylor was able to streak past just as Cameron was exiting pit lane.

“Today was a weird day but a great day, obviously,” said Ricky Taylor, who co-drove to victory with his brother on the Grand Prix of Long Beach street circuit for their first win of the season in mid-April. “We started on the pole and everything was going smoothly. And then I started having some serious power-steering issues. But the guys never gave up and, somehow, the power steering fixed itself. Jordan just kept his head down and picked people off as they started having issues of their own. And, somehow we ended up leading the race with five minutes to go. I don’t know how it happened, but we’ll take it with all the Konica Minolta and DLL guests we have here this weekend. It was a good day. We’re still pretty far back in the points but, with these kinds of performances, who knows what can happen by season’s end.”

With the victory, coupled with the fourth-place finish by the championship-leading No. 90 Action Express Racing Corvette DP of Richard Westbrook and Michael Valiante, the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP moved from fifth to fourth in the standings and closed the gap to first place from 22 points to 15 with three races remaining.

“I’m just so proud of this team,” team owner Wayne Taylor said. “I mean, Ricky won the pole and he led most of his stint. Then we had a massive problem with the power steering locking. Other cars had it but our car seemed to have it worse. We didn’t really know why until we realized we were running the front too soft to get a turn-in and we were overheating the power steering. After we put Jordan in the car, we told him he would have to run with a stiffer bar and that seemed to solve the problem. And then it turned into a fuel race, a strategy race, and (engineers) Adam Banet and Brian Pillar, John Scanlon and Paul Low did just an incredible job of calculating and anticipating what we needed to do and it worked out just perfectly. Of course, the drivers and the crew did their usual stellar job. And again, with Konica Minolta and DLL coming here this weekend and bringing 51 people who spent the whole weekend with us, driving around the track, racing go-karts with us, you just can’t beat this kind of a result.”

After taking the next three weekends off, the 2015 Tudor United SportsCar Championship resumes Aug. 9 with the Continental Tire Road Race Showcase at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. The two-hour, 40-minute race will be broadcast live by FOX Sports 1 beginning at 3 p.m. EDT.

Contact:

Laz.Denes@TrueSpeedCommunication.com

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