WTR looking toward its Le Mans debut for a 2025 reset

A difficult start to the 2025 season, which Wayne Taylor candidly described as "absolutely terrible," hasn't dampened his team's optimistic expectations going into its first entry into the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

That's not to say that Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing is underestimating the task. Wayne and his two sons, Ricky and Jordan, have competed individually as drivers for other teams.

"Obviously, it's the team's first time there," Jordan said. "Not just learning things on the track, it's all the logistics of getting there, getting the people there, understanding the rule sets, and obviously making a fast car."

The younger of the Taylor brothers took a famous LMGTE Pro class win at Le Mans 10 years ago driving for the factory Corvette Racing team, and in a month he'll be joining his brother Ricky, and co-driver Filipe Albuquerque, in the No. 101 Cadillac V-Series.R for Le Mans.
The groundwork for the team's first run at Le Mans with Cadillac will include a four-day simulator test that also incorporates the team's preparations for the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix, taking place the week before Le Mans test day.
"There's a lot of hours going into it from the engineering and the team side," Jordan said. "We've got a simulator session for Le Mans next week. It'll be split between Italy and America, so Filipe and Louis (Deletraz) will do two days in Italy in the Dallara sim, doing Detroit work, and then Ricky and I will jump in the sim in America the following two days, following up with Detroit work and leading into Le Mans work."

Jordan went further in-depth about how the 'one Cadillac' ethos of greater collaboration between the manufacturer's three teams – WTR, Action Express/Cadillac Whelen, and Hertz Team JOTA – will benefit WTR, which will be leaning on the other two teams' collective experience to help get them up to speed. "Obviously, JOTA has been there many times in LMP2, and the last couple of years in Hypercar," he said.

"Action's been there twice now with the Cadillac. So there's a lot of good data that we can dig through and understand. And once we do get there, it'll be like having a four-car team, basically, because we'll all be sharing information.

"Talking to drivers... Will (Stevens) was with us at Daytona and has been there in Hypercar, so we're kind of bouncing ideas off of him. Alex (Lynn) was supposed to be with us at Daytona, so talking with him as well, just to see what the strengths and weaknesses were the last two years with the Cadillacs, to get a little bit of a head start.

"As drivers, we're excited to be competing for an overall win and representing Cadillac. It's a huge stage. It's a ton of competition. But I think everyone's working towards battling for a podium," Jordan added. "I think we've been working on it since Daytona, even if we didn't have an entry back then - just to be in as good a position as possible.

"But the real work, I'd say, is next week in the simulator to get a real idea of where we're going to be and what we need to work on. I think we're all excited for that work and that effort. And once Detroit is over, we'll have a couple of days until we fly to Le Mans, and the real work will start for that test day and the days leading to the race."

Ricky, who's made the majority of his previous Le Mans starts in the LMP2 category, added his insight as the team also looks to the upcoming Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix as a race to help turn the team's dismal 2025 season around in IMSA.

The Taylors have plenty of individual Le Mans experience to draw upon, but going to La Sarthe with a Cadillac Hypercar run by the family team will be a new experience. Mike Levitt/IMSA

"We have at least a little bit more time between the Detroit race and the (Le Mans) test day, which is nice," he said. "Normally, we'd only make it there for the afternoon. Had that been the case this year, we would have had a car sitting there for the whole morning. So we'll be able to prep to the normal amount.

"One thing that's been kind of weird is, the Cadillac program did an update this year, changing data systems. So we're used to looking at data from previous years to learn stuff, and the engineers can look back at things from last year. But the drivers, we don't have that update yet.

"We're really lucky to have lots of good teammates that have been there year after year. I think it's going to be a big team effort. It's a little hard when it's Le Mans to try not to think ahead, but I'd say at the moment we're 100 percent focused on Detroit, and then Saturday evening, it'll be 100 percent Le Mans."

With WTR Vice President/General Manager Travis Hogue in charge of preparing the team's logistics in taking the team across the Atlantic, Wayne Taylor expressed confidence that at least getting all of its resources to Le Mans won't be an issue, especially as they work alongside the European staff.

Having originally planned to use one of Hertz Team JOTA's spare cars for Le Mans, WTR will instead have a new-for-2025 chassis (Dallara chassis No.023) being shipped via sea to France, along with a sufficient package of spare parts if needed.

"We know what we're going with," Wayne said. "As far as people are concerned, there's a lot of people going, probably about 80 people.

"Le Mans is so big and so difficult to navigate, just getting from your hotel to the track, or from the track to where you're going to stay during the night, for the drivers. But everybody's really worked hard. JOTA have helped us in a big way, as well as Cadillac. And quite honestly, I believe we've got everything under control right now."

While it's been over two months since WTR's entry in Le Mans was made official, Wayne – a Le Mans class winner as a driver back in 1998 – is still cherishing this opportunity to bring his team to the event to represent Cadillac. It's an opportunity that he's sought for years, and finally achieved upon WTR's reunion with General Motors for 2025.

"We weren't sure we were even going to get an entry, and then when they asked me to apply for the entry, I was pleasantly and happily shocked that they accepted us," Wayne recalled. "This is going to be a much taller order, but whenever you get a chance to try and do it, you go for it." 

Despite how poorly the team's IMSA season has started, and despite the obvious challenges facing WTR as it prepares to run Le Mans for the first time, Wayne is still gunning for a debut win – like the one his team took in the 2017 Rolex 24 At Daytona, Cadillac's first win in the IMSA DPi era.

"We're going there to try and replicate what we did at Daytona. It would be just amazing, for not only us, but for Cadillac," he said.

"They're the ones that have invested in this. They've put a lot of engineering support behind it. They've done an enormous job in marketing and PR - and being part of it is very humbling... so we're excited."