There are a lot of unknowns and new things for the Wayne Taylor Racing team to get their heads around before competing for the first time at Le Mans, said Jordan Taylor.
'I think there's just so many unknowns for a team going there,' said Taylor, one of the drivers in the IMSA full-time #40 WTR Cadillac V-Series.R, and one of three drivers who will be racing for the team at Le Mans, alongside brother Ricky and team regular Filipe Albuquerque.
'Our technical director, Brian Pillar, went there with Ricky [Taylor, Jordan's brother] a couple years ago to support Ricky and spent the whole race with the team to kind of get a head start and understanding.
The older Taylor brother last raced at Le Mans in 2022, driving for COOL Racing alongside Yifei Ye and Niklas Krütten. The trio finished seventh in LMP2, in their Oreca 07-Gibson.
And J. Taylor, the younger of the two brothers, has raced at Le Mans nine times in total, eight of them with Corvette Racing, from 2012 to 2022. He won the race in the GTE Pro class in 2022, and has finished second in the same class three further times.
Neither of them, or for that matter Albuquerque, has ever raced in the top class, though. And Wayne Taylor Racing has never raced at Le Mans, period.
'A lot of the crew guys and engineers have had some level of experience, but there's just so many new things. It’s a completely new rulebook.
'You're dealing with a whole different group of people, a small language barrier. I think just understanding all the different rules. We don't have slow zones in America, all those little things.
'I think the good thing is we do have some time to prepare. Obviously, you'd always want some more, but I think everyone knows how big the challenge is and how big the undertaking is.
WTR will be going up against new competition in the Hypercar class at Le Mans, including the Ferrari 499P, which has won the endurance classic for the past two years, and the Toyota team with the GR010, the world manufacturers/teams' champions for the past six seasons.
Plus, the team will have new competition in the Cadillac camp, in the form of Cadillac Team JOTA, the General Motors factory team in WEC. JOTA themselves are race winners, albeit not with Cadillac, having won the 6 Hours of Spa in 2024 when they were a Porsche customer team.
'They're already doing their due diligence contacting people that have done the event before to kind of get some more insight,' said J. Taylor.
'I've even been reaching out to some of the Garage 56 group to kind of get some help from them either from a logistics point of view or who they used, all little things like that. I think everyone's all hands on deck.'
J. Taylor was part of the Hendrick Motorsports team who raced the invitational NASCAR Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 at Le Mans in 2023, acting as the reserve driver for the race.
Wayne Taylor Racing certainly has its work cut out for the race in France. An old anecdotal phrase, from the 60s when Ford started racing at Le Mans, 'It takes three years to win Le Mans' might be relevant for the Cadillac squad this year. Many will be keeping a close eye on them amidst the 21-strong Hypercar field for the French endurance classic.
Feature image: Jacob Saddler
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