A yr in the past, a disastrous pit cease for points throughout a swap with co-driver Filipe Albuquerque left Taylor compelled to placed on a livid cost within the No. 10 Acura ARX-07 for Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti.
Taylor overcame a niche of 8s with eight minutes left and stormed again by way of to second and, with three minutes remaining, caught the Penske Porsche 963 of race chief Mathieu Jaminet, who was on older tires. With two laps to go, Taylor dove to the within of Jaminet coming into Flip 1 however underestimated the shortage of grip off the racing line as momentum carried him into the tire barrier and left the latter to coast to the win.
Though a yr has handed since then, the loss – that he takes possession of – remains to be contemporary in his thoughts.
“I am actually excited to be going again as a result of I bear in mind my first feeling after the race final yr was, ‘Gosh, I want I may do this once more’,” Taylor stated.
“You do not get a second probability in motorsport. Going again this yr, I have been serious about that second for a yr now and eventually get an opportunity to go erase it from my reminiscence hopefully, this yr.”
If put if put in an analogous place in Saturday’s 100-minute IMSA SportsCar Championship race, would Taylor repeat the transfer?
“It is so situational,” he stated.
“It did not seem to be an excessively aggressive transfer on the time. We had been able within the championship the place there was a lot up within the air, it was so early, there wasn’t actually a lot to achieve or lose. Wanting again on it, it value us the championship, however there have been a variety of different moments that additionally value us the championship. …
“I would not make the identical transfer clearly as a result of it did not work. I may need waited a lap or two longer realizing what I do know now; he was fairly off the tempo, and I may need had one other probability on the time. You assume you do not have one other shot, so I do not blame myself for going for it. Final yr, we actually needed to win the race. The second place wasn’t one thing we had been considering.”
Taylor and Albuquerque are eighth within the championship standings after two rounds, which may present a extra aggressive method on the 11-turn, 1.968-mile momentary avenue circuit.
“This yr, we come into it, we have to get some factors and we want a end result,” Taylor stated.
“We’ll be aggressive. Hopefully, that scenario does not occur once more. Hopefully, we are able to get the pole and management the race from the lead. However even with one pit cease, rather a lot can occur.”
One issue that’s prone to make a much bigger influence is having a softer tire compound versus final yr, when Jaminet vault to the lead and win regardless of by no means altering tires in the course of the race.
Taylor believes the softer rubber will permit for increased tire degradation, which may make for extra defensive driving.
“There’s going to be much more deg,” he stated.
“Out laps are going to be actually robust. I am not a strategist, however clearly the drivers are at all times throwing round concepts of ‘Oh, we should always undercut them’, however all people’s going to attempt undercut. There’s going to be lots of people defending after which who goes lengthy?
“There’s positively going to be folks making an attempt completely different stuff and I do not assume it is a full two stints, so there’s fairly a little bit of room to play. I believe for one cease it should be fairly thrilling what folks do.”