Return to Le Mans ‘fresh and ready to go’ for rain at Watkins Glen – Motorsport Week

Ricky Taylor has suggested to the media that drivers returning from last week’s rain-soaked 24 Hours of Le Mans are prepared for the Six Hours of the Glen, with rain likely throughout the weekend.

Asked about the threat of wet weather in a pre-event media call, Andretti’s Wayne Taylor Racing driver said:

“So Louis (Deleraz) – funnily enough – is the only one (of the four WTRAndretti drivers entering the Glen) who drove the car in the wet, which he qualified on pole at Petit last year in the wet and did ” doesn’t look bad.

“I think all the guys coming back from Le Mans are fresh and ready to go with a lot of experience in the rain in the GTP cars.

“So yes, we’ll be there, but it’s a bit of an unknown.

“So it looks like it’s going to rain – at least according to our forecast – almost every session this weekend.

“I think we all want to drive as much as we can, just to feel it. But yeah, it was a great year for Acura with the two wins at two tracks that have some similarities and some differences. I think we were strong almost everywhere.”

There will be 13 drivers competing in IMSA’s GTP category, having completed last weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, which was largely characterized by wet track conditions.

Furthermore, 10 of the 13 drove essentially the same LMDh cars they will pilot this weekend, such as Phil Hanson who drove a JOTA Porsche 963 in France and will drive a JDC Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 at Watkins Glen.

He noted how data analysis showed them to be the slowest GTP car in Detroit, despite winning with co-driver Felipe Albuquerque in the No. 10 Acura ARX-06.

Detroit’s 90-minute race was eventful as it gave way to five caution periods, although Taylor made a crafty, race-winning move that ended a 22-month winless streak.

An Acura has won two races this year: first at the 12 Hours of Sebring with the No. 40 and more recently at Detroit with the No. 10.

Despite this, Taylor was keen to say they are pushing for improvement as he and Albueruque sit sixth in the standings on 1430 points, compared to leaders Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr on 1669.

“Watkins is historically a good track for us,” he continued of the Sunday, June 30 race.

“We had some reliability issues last year, but the car was very quick.

“The one thing about the Acura is that it’s really efficient when you can run it really low, and Watkins Glen is such a smooth track, so it really suits what we like.

“And it’s also one of the higher energy paths that we’re heading towards. So we will run the tire hard (if dry).

“It’s going to be hard to warm up as usual…it should be in the 90s (+32 degrees Celsius) if it’s dry.”