Electrical Gremlins Ruin Sebring Victory Bid

Even on the best of weather days, the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring is the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season’s most formidable test of man and machine on the rugged, 3.74-mile, 17-turn former World War II-era airport-turned legendary road racing circuit.

Throw in drenching rain and a two-hour, 15-minute red flag period prompted by lightning storms in the area, as was the case during Saturday’s 64th renewal of America’s oldest endurance racing marathon, and the pursuit of victory is all the more complicated.

The No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP for Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) driver lineup of brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor, veteran Italian Max “The Ax” Angelelli and Formula One veteran Rubens Barrichello arrived at Sebring (Fla.) International Raceway focused on going one better than the team’s solid runner-up finish a year ago. But by the time all was said and done, their race was over with still two hours and 32 minutes to go before the checkered flag was scheduled to fly.

After solid but sometimes eventful driving stints by first Barrichello and then the Taylor brothers that kept the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP within striking distance of the leaders, Angelelli’s once promising charge to the front was seriously sidetracked and then ultimately ended by a mysterious electrical gremlin that confounded the WTR pit crew and finally left Angelelli stuck in the turn-seven gravel trap unable to restart his racing machine. That ended the once promising victory bid – just, like, that.

“There is really not much to say about what happened because we don’t know exactly what happened, yet,” Angelelli said. “All we do know is that it was electrical problems. Otherwise, the car was perfect. It was really good. I was looking forward to see one of the kids finish the race because I knew we had a really good racecar. I think we lost a podium finish, for sure, to say the least. It’s disappointing for all of us, but I’m disappointed for me, personally, because Sebring is the one race that I’m missing on my resume. Last year, we were pretty close. I’ve won Daytona, The Glen, Petit Le Mans, but I don’t have Sebring and I’m about to be 50 years old, so I have to rush (laughs).”

Angelelli was the fourth and final driver to get behind the wheel of the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP when he took over for Ricky Taylor with just less than five hours to go. Like Taylor, he stayed in the top-five. An hour later, he worked his way into the lead during a green-flag round of pit stops before pitting, himself, for tires and fuel and resuming with three hours and 46 minutes to go. Immediately upon rejoining the race, he began experiencing electrical issues and attempted to troubleshoot the situation from the cockpit. Two laps later, the crew called him to pit lane to investigate the issue with the race still under caution. But the situation was not resolved during that stop or the two that followed in subsequent laps. With a little more than three hours to go, the crew replaced an onboard electronic control unit, which solved a number of issues but not all of them.

For the next 30 minutes, Angelelli was back at race pace, running as fast if not faster than the leaders, but all the way back in 10th place, two laps down. He was able to get one of those laps back during the next caution period. But shortly after the race went back to green, he radioed that he was stuck in the turn-seven gravel trap and could not restart the car. Once the car was transported back to the garage, the crew was still unable to solve the issue and the car was retired.

“Obviously, it was disappointing to end the day like that,” said Jordan Taylor, who was the second driver in the car today. “I think we had a good car that could’ve battled for the win. I mean, we fell 19 points out of first in the standings but we still have another eight races to go. We have plenty of time to make that up. In 2013, when we won the championship, I think we were further back than that going into the last four races. There’s nothing to worry about, really. We’ve got a strong car the next two races at Long Beach and Laguna Seca. I think we just put our head down and focus on that. Today’s was a random problem. Racing in the rain like we did, then letting it sit for two hours, baking with the humidity and everything, it’s probably a fluke of a thing that happened. It could be a $1 part, for all we know. But that’s all part of racing.”

After taking over from Barrichello just short of the one-hour mark, Taylor was able to work his way into the top-five over the first 30 minutes of his stint. It was then that rain began to fall and ever-so-gradually escalated into an eventual downpour by the two-hour, 52-minute mark, when the race was red-flagged.

Once the race finally resumed at the five-hour, 12-minute mark, Taylor returned to the cockpit just long enough to drive one lap under caution and then pit to turn things over to his brother during a fuel-only stop.

“I got a bit of everything,” Jordan Taylor said of his stint. “I got a half a stint of dry weather, a half a stint of in-between, when we were on slicks in the damp, and then about an hour of full wet. It was my first time driving here in the rain and I always dreaded what it would be like over the bumps with puddling, but it wasn’t that bad as I expected. Our car was pretty good. We could maintain a good pace with the leaders. It was tough in the spray following someone. We always say track position is important, but with the track conditions and the spray, it was really important because it was really hard to follow someone.”

The track position Ricky Taylor gained by the fuel-only stop began to disappear as cars that took on fresh rain tires were able to work their way past him. But track conditions began to improve, Taylor was one of the first to pit for slick tires and, once the track dried sufficiently, he was able to work his way into the top-three before turning things over to Angelelli with just less than five hours to go.

“It seemed like we were always on different tires than everyone else, so it seemed like we were really, really slow, or really, really fast,” Taylor said. “I made a couple of mistakes and we lost a couple of seconds, but I think we had a good car once we got on the same sequence as everybody else. We were kind of playing the long game. That drizzle in the middle kind of messed up our strategy because we lost a lot of heat in the tires. Once the track began drying consistently, I knew we would be OK.”

Barrichello, who teamed with the Taylor brothers and Angelelli for a solid runner-up finish at this year’s season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona, qualified the No. 10 Konica Minolta Corvette DP eighth and held his relative position during his entire opening stint before handing off to Jordan Taylor.

“First of all, it was an honor to be carrying the flag for Max and the boys for the first stint,” he said. “It was pretty calm to begin with, and then we started to have some small issues with the brakes, but our team recovered quite well. We had a slick pit stop and I was very hopeful that we could go up from there, which we did. We were putting ourselves in a very good position heading toward the end of the race, but then we never got the chance. I feel bad for everybody, but this is a championship team and they will be back.”

Team owner Wayne Taylor concurred.

“With four hours to go, we were in a really good position,” he said. “We felt we had much better fuel consumption than the other cars. We seemed to be able to run at the same speed and then we would’ve had a fuel advantage at the end. We struggled a little bit by putting Ricky out on slicks when it was still cold and wet. But then it dried out and he reeled everybody back in again and that got us back in the game. Then, Max experienced this electronic problem that we’ve never had before. We need to make sure we know what the problem is and then move on to the next one. We’ll be alright.”

Round three of the 2016 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is the Grand Prix of Long Beach (Calif.) Saturday, April 16. Ricky and Jordan Taylor are the defending race winners of the annual Southern California street race after having finished a solid second in their first outing there in 2015. Live race coverage begins at 7 p.m. EDT on FS1.

Contact:

Laz.Denes@TrueSpeedCommunication.com

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