ELKHART LAKE, Wis. – In a high-spirited, six-hour battle at one of the world’s most renowned road courses, Portugal’s Filipe Albuquerque and American Ricky Taylor guided the No. 10 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) to overall victory in Sunday’s Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix.
The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s visit to Road America expanded from two hours, 40 minutes to six hours and the No. 10 car prevailed on an afternoon featuring major championship implications and aggressive high-stakes racing from the drop of the green flag to wave of the yellow and checkered.
The winning Cadillac claimed a hard-earned victory under those yellow flag conditions leading the No. 5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 co-driven by Laurin Heinrich, Tijmen van der Heim and Kaylen Frederick across the finish line.
The No 40 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac gave the iconic IMSA team its second podium position with a third-place effort turned in by drivers Jordan Taylor and Louis Deletraz. It’s the most successful weekend for the legendary, Wayne Taylor-owned GTP organization in two seasons.
This six-hour event was action-packed all afternoon on the 4.048-mile, 14-turn road course in the scenic Wisconsin countryside. The final two positions on the podium were only decided in the final 10 minutes in one of the more emotionally fueled outcomes on the years.
An impactful ninth – and final – full-course caution flag of the day flew for contact between then second-place No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 driven by Kevin Estre and the third-place No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac driven by championship leader Jack Aitken.
The cars collided while racing for second place overall, with the No. 31 car going into the Turn 1 wall and the momentum from that push propelling the No. 6 into the Turn 3 gravel trap. Both drivers were evaluated and released from the infield care center. However, race results will remain unofficial pending a comprehensive review of the incident.
This put the race under a full-course caution to the finish, and WTR enjoyed its first GTP win since 2024 in Detroit.
Albuquerque put the No. 10 into the lead with about an hour and a half remaining and acknowledged he had to be on top of his game with Estre and Aitken chasing him down in the closing minutes of the race.
“Today was just a special day,” said Albuquerque, who now has 14 career IMSA wins and two at Road America.
“This feels way more special than others because of how much we overcame and being together as a team,” he added. “We’ve been working hard and when you come from the bottom to the top and need to prove to everybody you can still do it, it’s a great feeling.”
“So many things happened,” Albuquerque said of the day’s contest. “After restarts, yellow brings more yellow. … I saw in the mirror the 6-car [Estre] completely sideways and thought he was going to collect me, but I was lucky there. I was just so focused on my race even if at times, I had to breathe. I never had it in the pocket, it was always focus on the next corner, no mistakes.”
This is the 54th class win for Wayne Taylor Racing, the sixth most all-time on the IMSA team wins list. It is Ricky Taylor’s 33rd career IMSA win, second most among active drivers – one behind his teammate and younger brother, Jordan Taylor.
“For all of us it is a big relief,” the two-time IMSA champion Taylor said. “Since changing manufacturers (from Acura to Cadillac) we haven’t performed at the level I think the expectations were. Confidence was dropping and everybody starts doubting themselves, but I think the important thing is the team never blamed each other, we just started working harder and harder.
“And [today] the way the race went, this wasn’t a lucky one, the team did everything right.''
Aitken entered the weekend with a 200-plus point championship lead but unofficially is only 108 up on Heinrich with two races remaining in the season. Heinrich’s championship hopes remain alive in those two races, which he’ll split between JDC-Miller at Indianapolis and Porsche Penske Motorsport at Motul Petit Le Mans.
“I said to some people on the podium it was like a second birthday,” the 24-year-old German said with a smile. “But it may sound like it was gifted and it was not. In the end, everyone around you loses your head and you manage to keep it, that’s endurance racing. You have to drive it over the line. Great team effort.
“It was a good day obviously,” he added. “The [championship] lead of Jack [Aitken] was quite big with three races to go but it’s never over until it’s over and now this is significant. Results like this change things quite a bit, but I would be lying if I said I was hoping it was less than 108 points. That’s still substantial with two races to go.
“I won’t give up. I will push hard and do the last two races with two different teams.”
