Wayne Taylor slams “inexcusable” penalty call after “most disappointing” Sebring 12 Hours

Wayne Taylor says it is “excusable” that his team lost a shot at victory in the Sebring 12 Hours due to a penalty after race control admitted to him that they had made a “bad call”.

While Action Express Racing’s sole Cadillac fought for victory in the second round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship, Wayne Taylor Racing endured a day to forget with its pair of V-Series.R prototypes.

The #40 Caddy had already lost a heap of time while WTR repaired a throttle issue, but things went from bad to worse when Ricky Taylor was handed a 60-second stop/go penalty for pitching the #023 Triarsi Ferrari 296 GT3 of Charles Scardina into the wall in the first hour of the race.

Replays showed the WTR Cadillac and the Triarsi Ferrari having a run-in at Turn 13, but it wasn’t completely clear if there had been any contact between the two cars due to the angle from which the incident was recorded.

According to WTR’s estimates, the penalty cost Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque and Will Stevens a full lap at Sebring and significantly compromised their chances of being in the hunt at the end of the race.

The trio eventually finished seventh, a lap down on the race-winning #7 Porsche Penske 963 of Laurens Vanthoor, Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy.

Team owner Wayne Taylor revealed that the race director accepted their mistake in judging the clash with the GTD-class Ferrari, but did not provide a resolution to undo the damage.

“That is probably the most disappointing Sebring 12 Hour I have been to,:” he said. “It is sad because we have such great support from Cadillac and DEX.

“The team worked so hard, and the drivers did such a good job. As we weren’t that competitive in Qualifying, we decided to build a race car for the race. And now that the race is over, even though we didn’t get the result we wanted, we were running the same times as the top cars.

“Right in the very beginning, the No. 10 car had a problem with the throttle not opening fully, so we had to come in and fix it, dropping down two laps. Then, once out, the No. 10 car got a drive-through penalty of 60 seconds for something we didn’t do, and which put us down another lap. Three laps! Two were of our doing, the other one was because of the race director.

“We looked at the footage, he never touched the car. Ricky said he never touched the car. And the Race Director’s response was that he made a ‘bad call’.

“Well, then what is the protocol on making a ‘bad call’? That one lap cost us the chance to race for the win in the end. It is inexcusable.

“I am not going to put this kind of effort in, representing these brands, to have somebody make these kinds of moves.

“In the end, we had a car that we could race and unfortunately, the Race Director didn’t allow us to race.”

WTR’s sister #40 Cadillac crewed by Louis Deletraz, Jordan Taylor and Brendon Hartley retired late on with mechanical issues, but was officially classified 11th in class.

The #40 entry also had a troubled run at the Florida-based venue, not helped by Hartley locking up his tyres and hitting the wall at Turn 17 shortly before the mid-point of the race.

“It was a bit of a rough day on both sides of the garage,” said Hartley, who normally drives a Toyota GR010 Hybrid in the World Endurance Championship. “We were battling and everyone was doing their best.

“I had a little mistake, I had been struggling a little bit with brakes, locked up and went straight into Turn 17 which lost us a lap. And then we just couldn’t get it back.

“Not many yellows, which was a problem for both cars to get us back to the lead lap. I think we battled hard, but ultimately, we left here with no result.

“Disappointed and I feel bad for making an error but I enjoyed my weekend with Wayne Taylor Racing and hope to be back at some point.”

WTR has a successful track record at Sebring and most recently won the race in 2024 with Jordan Taylor, Colton Herta and Deletraz driving an Acura ARX-06. It split with Honda’s luxury brand Acura over the winter to reunite with Cadillac.