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Ricky Taylor's track record wins COTA IMSA pole

Friday, 05 May 2017


By Marshall Pruett (words & images)

Ricky Taylor shattered the lap record for IMSA's Prototypes at Circuit of The Americas on Friday as the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R claimed its second pole of the year. Taylor's otherworldly lap of 1m54.809s was well out of reach by the rapidly improving No. 22 Nissan Onroak DPi driven by Tequila Patron ESM's Johannes van Overbeek (+1.592s), and Eric Curran in the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R (+1.620s). Taylor's pole was exactly 3.0s faster than the record set in 2014 by the No. 42 OAK Racing Ligier JS P2-Honda.
"This feels so nice," said Taylor, who also claimed pole at last year's COTA race. "We knew we were good at COTA with our Corvette DP [in 2016] and had to start fresh with our Cadillac DPi-V.R. it was a very intense qualifying session."
The humble Floridian refused to take credit for the gaudy gap to the rest of the Prototype field.
"One point five seconds isn't the driver; it's the car," he insisted.
Compared to where the ESM team started with its Nissans at the beginning of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season, the steady climb toward competitiveness was a welcome sign under the warm blue skies at COTA's 3.4-mile facility.
"It's really a testament to the Patron ESM team," van Overbeek said. "Our guys have kept continually making the car better."










Despite having just two cars to beat to pole, Performance Tech Motorsports' James French says he drove like a dozen PC cars were breathing down his neck on the way to earning the top starting spot with a rapid 2m00.066s lap around the 19-turn circuit. His best in the No. 38 ORECA FLM09-Chevrolet was well clear of the No. 26 BAR1 Motorsports Pc driven by a cramped Stefan Wilson (+2.960s) and Don Yount in the sister BAR1 car (+4.198s).
"To be honest, I tried 100 percent as hard as I would in qualifying," French said. "It was pretty good, the car was handling really well; it was a blast."
BMW's big twin-turbo V8 M6s ruled GT Le Mans qualifying. The welcome turn of fortunes for the factory BMW Team RLL entries, which have struggled for pace this year behind the comparatively tiny supercars that dominate the class, was led by John Edwards in the No. 24 BMW with a lap of 2m02.833s.
"I have to say it was a little bit of a surprise, Edwards said. "Things have been a bit more competitive at COTA than we were earlier this year. There it was on Lap 2, and that was it. It's starting to feel like the good old days of DTM and GTLM here."
Home state favorites Risi Competizione held pole with Giancarlo Fisichella in the No. 62 Ferrari 488 until Edwards threw down his amazing lap (+0.032s), and it looked like Ford would hold onto third until Alexander Sims in the No. 25 BMW M6 snatched the position on the final lap (+0.157s).
"P2, just less than 300ths behind pole position is impressive, but it's better to be on pole," Fisichella said. "Sad for the team and crew, but the most important things is the race."
The mighty little Alegra Motorsport team continued its season-long campaign to spoil the plans of the more established GT Daytona teams by securing pole position with the No. 28 Porsche 911 GT3R. France's Mathieu Jaminet, a relative unknown in the class, used his Porsche Supercup experience at COTA to record a 2m06.531s.
"The lap was really good, as well as the car," Jaminet said of his star performance on his first IMSA appearance. "Just an amazing job from the crew and very happy for my debut to be on pole position here. The team is really a family team; it feels like home."

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Ricky shattered IMSA's Prototype lap record at Circuit of The Americas on Friday. Taylors take Alonso references in stride

Friday, 05 May 2017


By Marshall Pruett

Ricky and Jordan Taylor recently came under friendly fire from an opinion column in the mainstream press arguing that the sports car stars would have been better choices for an Indy 500 opportunity than Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso.
As the wave of backlash started to build on social media towards the author for the Taylors-instead-of-Alonso suggestion, the brothers also took a bit of flak.
Although they've previously remained silent on the topic, the two admitted to feeling like "collateral damage" in an interview after Ricky shattered IMSA's Prototype lap record at Circuit of The Americas on Friday.

"We never said we were Fernando Alonso," Ricky said. Jordan added: "I didn't even know it happened until I started getting a bunch of tweets at me saying, 'I don't know who Ricky and Jordan Taylor think they are, but they're no Fernando Alonso!' I was like, 'I don't think I'm Fernando Alonso...so I don't know what you're talking about!'"
The Taylors were tempted to weigh in at the time of the social media storm, but made the wiser decision to avoid 140-character responses as the fake outrage ran its course.
"We wanted to defend the author because people were being mean, but also we didn't want people to think that [her] opinion was ours as well, so it was an awkward spot," Ricky said. "It's nice to see your name in print, but in that association [next to Alonso], it was tough."
Between the Taylors, Jordan is known for his sense of humor via Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat while Ricky, who leans towards a quieter existence, lets his younger brother deliver the punchlines. Asked if they watched the vastly popular live stream earlier in the week of Alonso testing for the first time in preparation for the Indy 500 (pictured), Jordan handled the response.
"We were watching it, and everyone was telling us we needed to Tweet: 'Hey Alonso, what are you doing in our car?', but we knew it would make so many IndyCar fans angry if we did..." he joked.
"On social media, things you say can be taken out of context so easily. I haven't posted an opinion in years. I just post pictures of my dog and things that make people happy."
With the incident now behind them, the current IMSA Prototype championship leaders will focus on winning their fourth consecutive race of the year on Saturday. Ricky could also have some hard decisions to make in the future if his career continues on its upward trajectory.
After testing for Roger Penske's IndyCar program earlier in the year, and further demonstrating his skills through poles and wins in the Prototype class, the elder Taylor brother has been mentioned by a few IndyCar team owners and team principals in recent weeks as someone to consider for an open-wheel opportunity.