Wayne Taylor Racing, Pfaff Motorsports taste IMSA glory at Road America

Today’s wild IMSA race at Road America produced two standout results, with Wayne Taylor Racing winning overall for the first time since the 2024 Detroit Sports Car Classic and Pfaff Motorsports clinching its first GTD Pro victory in 36 races with the new-for-2026 Lamborghini Temerario GT3.

In GTP, for WTR, the outpouring of emotion in front of a record-breaking crowd at Road America was a sight to behold. The wait was agonisingly long: 792 days to be exact, between its most recent visits to victory lane.

Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor in its No. 10 Cadillac V-Series.R ended the drought, emerging victorious in the Wisconsin circuit's first-ever six-hour Endurance Cup race. It was an incident-packed encounter — particularly in the closing stages — at times mimicking last year's chaotic sprint race, before finishing under yellow after a hefty incident for the championship-leading Action Express Cadillac and No. 6 Penske Porsche at what would be the final restart.

But the Wayne Taylor Racing contingent won't care about that one bit. For the longstanding, decorated IMSA team, it was a sorely-needed win, and a double podium after the sister car snuck into third. "I started wondering if I knew what I was doing," team owner Wayne Taylor admitted post-race, "but we did it. The team needed this so badly."

After a particularly challenging 2025 campaign — its first back with Cadillac in IMSA following a stint with Acura — there were signs in the first half of this season that things were beginning to come together, particularly at Le Mans when the team looked revitalized. But bad luck, small errors, or a combination of both, time and time again cost the team visits to victory lane.

Today, though, everything fell into place on a day which saw penalties doled out left, right and center and Cadillac's other GTP team, Action Express Racing, crash out and finish off the podium for the first time since IMSA's last visit to Road America 12 months ago.

"I think for all of us, it's a big relief," Ricky Taylor said in the presser. "Since changing manufacturers, we haven't performed at the level I think the expectations were. The results weren't coming. The confidence was dropping. Everybody starts doubting themselves.

"But I think the important thing is that the team never blamed each other. We just kept working harder and harder and harder, and the results weren't coming. So now to have a result, I feel like the way the race went, it wasn't a lucky one; the team did everything right. We were sort of in the race for the second half of the race, fighting for the win.

"I just think it's awesome that Filipe was in the car at the end. The relationship we've had since 2021, we work so well together on and off the track. Yeah, I think to share it with him, obviously the team is tight-knit; it's more than a family team. Everybody on the team feels like family at this point. I think for everybody, it's a huge relief and a nice testament to the work that everybody's doing."

Executing a clean race was crucial here. The Cadillacs weren't the quickest over a single lap in qualifying, or over the course of the race, but the No. 10 crew were quick enough to remain in contention and sensible enough to avoid the glare of race control. It was a performance akin to Action Express Racing during its uber-consistent run of form since Indianapolis last season, and a reward for the hard work ongoing behind the scenes the team has been putting in to get on top of the V-Series.R package and turn things around.

The factory Porsches looked capable of winning at times, but got caught up in incidents. Acura, which locked out the front row, had its race unravel and fall apart, and Aston Martin THOR Team's Valkyrie, which came closest on the road to the winning Caddy, lost second to a penalty applied post-race. It was yet another wild GTP race to add to the list this season, except this time, Wayne Taylor Racing wasn't left licking its wounds on the journey home.

"Today was just a special day," Albuquerque explained. "I think everything worked out perfectly. We passed the No. 31, went to the lead. We maintained it from there. 10 laps to go, okay, cruising, because it was a nice lead. But those restarts were tricky because I knew that the Porsches were very, very strong. I needed to be very focused for that.

"Ultimately, it's more than a win. We've won many other races, but this feels way more special than others, almost like a championship, because of how much we overcame and being together as a team and working hard. When you come from the bottom to the top, prove yourself to everybody that you can still do it, it's a great, great feeling, especially just before the summer holidays."

Meanwhile, in GTD Pro, the Lamborghini Temerario GT3 now has an IMSA win on its fast-growing CV. Canadian partner team Pfaff Motorsports’s crew experienced a similar feeling to WTR’s, after claiming its first win since March 2023 at Sebring when it was racing with Porsche, before its brief stint with McLaren.

The team’s victory was a product of strong performances from its drivers, Sandy Mitchell and Andrea Calderelli, a well-executed strategy and a brand-new Brembo brake package for the car that, on its first weekend, worked exactly as advertised.

“It’s absolutely massive,” Mitchell reacted. “There's so much work going on at Lamborghini behind the scenes throughout this year as well as developing the car last year. Then continuing that development into this year, whether that's at the race events, but also testing in the background.

“I’m just super proud of everyone at Lamborghini and Pfaff as well, for continuing to just keep pushing forward with the car. Of course, it's been challenging at times. It's never easy to come into such a competitive championship like IMSA and be competitive straightaway. To have a P2 and P1 at this point in the championship is more than we would have expected.”

“To achieve this,” Caldarelli added, “for a new car, in the first year, it's really, really special.”