A Heavily Watered-Down Fourth-Place Finish for Wayne Taylor Racing

Wet, rainy and oftentimes treacherous conditions from green flag to checkered flag turned Saturday’s TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season-ending Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta into little more than a battle of survival.

The No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP for Wayne Taylor Racing trio of brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor and veteran Italian Max “The Ax” Angelelli, defending event winners, were among drivers who successfully weathered the storm on the racetrack but then were relegated to a rather unsatisfying fourth-place finish after the checkered flag was thrown completely by surprise seven hours and 52 minutes into the scheduled 10-hour event over the 2.54-mile, 12-turn Road Atlanta circuit.

Angelelli, the third and final driver to take the wheel of the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP, was one hour and six minutes into his stint and running in second place when an LMPC-class car was stuck off course. Angelelli and then-leader Eric Curran in the No. 31 Action Express Racing Corvette DP both were in position to quickly duck into the pits to top off their fuel tanks before the pits were closed at the outset of the caution period.

Curran and Angelelli rejoined the field in third and fourth place behind the No. 5 Action Express Racing Corvette DP of Joao Barbosa and the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Ford Riley of Scott Dixon, who were expected to stop under yellow once the pits were opened. Those stops turned out to be unnecessary as, six laps into the caution period and with the pits never having been opened per normal procedure, the checkered flag waved to end the race.

“It was very, very bizarre and very unfortunate for our racing team,” said Angelelli, who co-drove with the Taylor brothers for the fourth and final event of the Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup championship-within-a-championship event this season. “We race with rain, that is not a problem, we always do. What was weird were some calls that were made today, like dropping the yellows only because of crashes even though the track was bad well before the crashes occurred, and then go green well before the track was good to go green again. That’s the only thing I would have a problem with about today. Otherwise, it was a very unsatisfying way to end the race and the season after all of the hard work we did to get to the front. The way the checkered flag came out before any kind of normal procedure was followed, as far as opening the pits according to the rulebook and giving other teams the chance to execute the strategy decisions they made to pit or not during that yellow. It was all just very, very strange – very, very bizarre.”

Angelelli took over the reins of the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP from Jordan Taylor, who did three hours and 17 minutes of actual driving capped by a one-hour, five-minute red flag for quickly deteriorating track conditions. Just prior to the red flag, Taylor and leader Sebastian Bourdais in the No. 5 Action Express Corvette were running nose-to-tail, having checked out by a huge margin from the rest of the field. Taylor kept the Konica Minolta Corvette in the top-three among the Prototype-class cars for his entire stint and steered clear of constant trouble on the racetrack amidst the treacherous conditions.

“It was a lot worse in the car than it looked from the pit lane or on TV,” Taylor said. “Things – the conditions – seemed to change pretty much every lap. It was a long stint but most of it was yellow because of the track conditions and guys going off. It was really all about survival and keeping it on the track. Thankfully, we were able to do that and keep it in the top-three. We had a quick car once we got everything sorted out with tire pressures. It’s just hard to make up ground when there is so much spray in the air and you can’t get that close to anyone in front of you. The guys at front have the advantage. Track position was important and getting through traffic as cleanly as possible was the name of the game today.”

Ricky Taylor, who qualified the Konica Minolta Corvette fourth late Friday, kept things clean, as well, during his opening stint despite constant rain through his hour and 54 minutes behind the wheel. He kept the car in the top-five throughout his stint and was in fifth when he pitted to hand things over to his younger brother.

“It was a pretty good stint,” Taylor said. “The goal was not to go off track. We were still trying to figure out the optimum tire pressures and where we wanted to be with that after losing quite a bit of track position and momentum because of that at the beginning of the stint. We were in great shape later in the race, I think. The car balance and setup was good. It was just a matter of where we wanted to have the car for the end, which we never really got to because of the surprise checker. You eventually get into a groove driving in the rain but, no matter how much of a groove you feel like you’re getting into, it’s incredibly mentally draining to race in conditions like this. You can never rest or lose concentration at all. Visibility is bad behind other cars but, for the majority of my stint, I guess it was fine. When it started raining at the end of my stint, though, it got pretty bad.”

Today’s race was won overall by the No. 911 GTLM-class Porsche, which benefitted from its superior rain tires and was better suited to the treacherous conditions. Another GTLM-class car, the No. 24 BMW, finished second overall. First in the Prototype class was the No. 5 Action Express Corvette, which was at the front when the surprise checkered flag flew. By virtue of its victory, coupled with the fifth-place finish in class by the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette DP of Richard Westbrook, Michael Valiante and Mike Rockenfeller, the No. 5 Corvette team captured the Prototype-class championship for the second year in a row. The No. 01 Ganassi Ford finished second among the Prototype-class cars today while the No. 31 Action Express Corvette finished third.

“I really don’t know what to say,” said team owner Wayne Taylor, whose saw his troops record a pair of wins, five podium finishes and three pole positions over the 10-race season. “I just don’t know what to say after a day like that, a day that ended like that. All I can say is, thank God for us having such great sponsors – for Konica Minolta, for Chevrolet, everybody who’s on this team, the drivers. We did everything right and put ourselves into position to finish at least second with a possible chance to win the race. And then they threw the checkered flag, which killed us completely. Under normal circumstances, if they knew all along they were going to throw the checkered flag, they should’ve gone back to the positions as they were on the track prior to the yellow. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s all very frustrating. All I know is, we will come back with a vengeance next year.”

The 2016 Tudor United SportsCar Championship kicks off with the 50th running of the iconic Rolex 24 At Daytona Jan. 30 to 31 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.

Contact:

Laz.Denes@TrueSpeedCommunication.com

#IMSA #PetitLeMans