After four years apart, Wayne Taylor Racing has reunited with Cadillac. Wayne Taylor, the team’s manager, said he was “refreshed”.
After finishing second in the Rolex 24 at Daytona three times in four years with Chevrolet from 2013 to 2016, a switch to Cadillac in 2017 yielded three wins in four events. The team won again in 2021 with Acura, and Wayne Taylor also won as a driver in 1996 and 2005.
“I’ve had many years of involvement with Cadillac, both as a team owner and as a driver,” Taylor said in an interview this month. “But those four years were special.”
In 2021, the team left Cadillac and signed with Honda and the Acura brand. The reason, Taylor said, was because he felt that “Cadillac, at the time, wasn’t really that committed.
“When I wanted to make a commitment,” he continued, “I didn’t feel that real willingness on their part to work together on a program.
“Acura had just done three years with Roger Penske and they hadn’t won Daytona or [12 Hours of] Sebring. When they first approached me, they said, “Look, you’ve won five of these 24 and we need it.”
Wayne Taylor Racing and Acura won Daytona in their first year together and were second in 2022 and 2023. Their best finish at Sebring was fourth.
Taylor said the last two years with Acura in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship were “pretty miserable and I was thinking, ‘Man, I don’t know, I don’t think I want to keep doing this anymore.’
After leaving Cadillac in 2021, he felt the bridges had been burned, but a chance meeting with Mark Reuss, the chairman of General Motors, whom Taylor considered a friend, sparked a reunion.
“When we chatted again, I just said, ‘Hey Mark, is there any way I can come back?’ He said, “Sure, when can you?” I said, “Well, my contract is up at the end of ’24.” He said, “Well, ’25?'” I said, “Yeah, ’25.'” Then I thought, “He’ll fly back and forget about it.”
A phone call soon after opened the way. Taylor said the deal with GM now was “just a completely different entity.”
“Mark is very committed to racing, very committed to the Cadillac brand, as we can see with the other things that are happening with the Formula 1 engine program,” he said. “But as much as Formula 1 is a big deal, he’s a real sports car enthusiast.
“They know so much, from a global perspective, what motor racing really does, whether it’s Formula 1 or sports cars, and that really fascinates me. I can’t believe I’m still excited about these things. I feel like I’m 25, because it’s really nice to work with these people. It has revitalized me.”
For GM, the feeling of excitement is mutual. Along with Wayne Taylor Racing, Cadillac will field two of its V-Series.Rs in the GTP class. The third is run by Cadillac Whelen Engineering.
“It’s exciting for us, and not just because of the long history and the relationship,” Eric Warren, executive director of GM Global Motorsports Competition, said in an interview this month. “The important part is the success we had with Wayne, particularly at the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
“We want to continue to expand and invest. this is a key part of it. We thought about it from the beginning. We looked at the whole program and to have another chance with Wayne, given the history with Wayne, it was a natural decision.”
Warren said the situation at GM Motorsports changed in 2019 when the engineering organization began to form, which included his initial appointment as director of Motorsports Competition NASCAR Programs, before assuming his current role in 2023.
“We started building, recruiting and taking the approach that GM always had that racing DNA and we were going to race,” he said. “We’re structured to be on the track, build tools and technologies for the race teams and be in it, be with them, which sounds easy to say but hard to execute.”
“There’s more pressure on representing the brand than trying to recreate something,” he said. “If you look back, you will lose. The motivation is from a technical point of view, pure competition and building that culture of winning.”
Warren, GM and Cadillac know the pain of losing at Daytona. Last year, with Whelen Engineering, Cadillac lost the race lead in the final hour during a pit stop under a caution period.
“I’m anxious and nervous every game morning, regardless of the lineup,” Warren said. “I feel like if we don’t win, we fail and it takes a long time to learn how to deal with that.”
Four drivers will take the wheel of two Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillacs. Taylor’s sons, Ricky and Jordan, will be in different cars. Along with Ricky at No. 10 Filipe Albuquerque, Will Stevens and Brendon Hartley. Jordan at No. 40 by Louis Delétraz, Alex Lynn and Kamui Kobayashi.
Kobayashi is bidding for a third win in three Daytona starts with Wayne Taylor Racing after triumphing in 2019 and 2020. As Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe’s World Endurance Championship team captain, he ended his relationship with Wayne Taylor Racing after from partnership with Honda Acura in 2021.
Kobayashi, winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and two-time WEC champion, said Akio Toyoda, the Toyota chairman, had given his blessing. “I talked to my boss and he allowed me to take this opportunity,” he said in an interview this month.
“I’m very grateful to be back with WTR I’ve always had a good relationship with Wayne. He always had a huge spirit to win matches. If there’s a 1 percent chance, he’ll take it.”
With the partnership back, Kobayashi said he was confident of taking his third win at Daytona. “The driver line-up is really strong,” he said. And, of course, with Cadillac, it’s a competitive car.
Stevens, who drove for Wayne Taylor Racing in 2022, finishing second at Daytona, said he had “unfinished business” with the team.
“I always felt and believed that at some point we would be back together,” he said in an interview this month. “This is the perfect time for that to happen, with Cadillac coming on board.
“The history they have together as a partnership has always been very successful and we have all the ingredients to make that happen again. Hopefully we can start that at Daytona.”
From the driver’s side, the chance to win a race is all that matters. Ricky Taylor said GM had provided financial support, engineering resources and personnel that made this opportunity “super exciting.”
“I can just see the momentum and how excited everyone is around the program,” he said in an interview this month. “As much as I thought I didn’t need to be motivated to try to win more races, it’s even more motivating to see that everyone else is putting everything into it.
“My dad has been with GM for so many years and he keeps saying he’s never seen this level of enthusiasm or interest from a manufacturer.”
Wayne Taylor said he felt “very positive” about his chances of winning for a seventh time at Daytona.
“The reason is that I’ve watched the Cadillacs, and no matter what track they went to, they were always competitive,” he said. “But we face stiff competition. You can never write off Penske, and BMW is fast. It will be a great match for the fans.”
