Wayne Taylor Racing means business in 2025 with its new Cadillac program in IMSA’s GTP class.
A year after raising the bar with Acura and HRC by adding a second car to the program, WTR packed its bags and signed a deal to return to General Motors. It was a big move, one that sits at the heart of Cadillac’s renewed drive for glory in North America.
After a four-year partnership with Acura, this move promises to inject new energy into the Indiana-based team. After a successful period with the ARX-05, the team achieved only two race victories in two seasons with the ARX-06. They began to yearn for a change, and when the opportunity arose following Chip Ganassi Racing’s split with GM, they jumped.
To kick off this new chapter, Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing brings two cars and a pair of star drivers to the field. In issue 10, Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque team up for the campaign. The sister No. 40, meanwhile, will be piloted year-round by Louis Deletraz and Jordan Taylor. JOTA WEC drivers Will Stevens and Alex Lynn (who withdrew from the Rolex 24 with a virus) are heading into the long races and Toyota Hypercar drivers Brendon Hartley and Kamui Kobayashi are adding even more firepower for Daytona.
“The team has always had a reputation for hiring some great drivers, especially for the long races. We are lucky that we have such an attractive nature,” Ricky Taylor told RACER.
“People want to drive WTR and because of the relationship between the three Cadillac teams, we wanted to share drivers. That’s why we have Alex and Will.”
How long will it take for the team to get back on track? History tells us that this will not last long. When WTR switched from Cadillac to Acura in 2021, it won the Rolex 24 in its debut with the ARX-05.
However, testing opportunities were limited during the short off-season and the GTP level is sky high these days, with twelve cars for Daytona and Aston Martin, which will bring the number for Sebring to thirteen.
Good news is that while the V-Series.R may be new to the team, the car is a known quantity. It was the same situation in ’21 when WTR teamed up with Acura after Penske campaigned the ARX-05 for three seasons.
The V-Series.R from Caddilac is a proven winner. He claimed the 2023 IMSA GTP titles with Action Express and received his first ‘joker’ update in the form of an electronics upgrade ahead of the new season.
There is also plenty of track time for the team to take advantage of in the run-up to the Rolex, allowing WTR staff to play with the setup options and familiarize themselves with the finer details of the car.
“It’s all quite new, and since it’s the same rules package for everyone, different manufacturers have definitely taken a different approach to the hybrid approach,” Taylor continues.
“The approach of GM, Cadillac and Dallara has always been to keep things simple, and I think that’s what struck me the first time I drove the car. The Acura was nimble and agile, and it was designed to be that way with the smallest, lightest engine.
“But the Cadillac is simple; it does all the little things right and that’s what you need for endurance racing. We can already see why this car is good on any race track, because you can feel it with every change you make to the setup. It is very flexible.”
Perhaps the toughest task comes from the people side, as the WTR crews rebuild a working relationship with everyone at Cadillac and chassis supplier Dallara.
“For us it’s a matter of drag and drop in terms of personnel, but on the factory side it’s all changed a lot from the DPi era,” explains Taylor, who last drove a Cadillac in 2017. “Back then you got an engine guy from GM, a performance guy from Dallara and that was pretty much the relationship between the team and those partners.
“Now it’s a combination of over a hundred people from different companies, so it’s still a learning curve and in some ways it doesn’t feel like coming home, it feels like a stranger. It’s interesting to see how everything has evolved as GM is putting more resources into this than ever.”
If it takes some time for WTR to get up to speed, Cadillac can call on Action Express. The loyal team led by Gary Nelson remains part of the family with one car and a striking line-up. Seasonal driver Jack Aitken expects the two teams to work closely together throughout the season, which in turn should also see WTR off the ground in early 2025.
“We’re trying to make everything at Cadillac even more cooperative than before,” Aitken says. “That’s not necessarily because of the Ganassi/Wayne Taylor swap, that’s exactly what Cadillac is always trying to promote. We are trying to increase data sharing, communication and our overall understanding.
“It’s difficult because there are so many people involved, and it’s not easy to work together on the track, but that’s the goal for the future. We are Cadillac teams and Cadillac drivers and the goal is for Cadillac to be on the top step above all else.
“We’ll see how it turns out when we actually start racing, but at the moment it feels very positive.”