Two-time Daytona 24 Hours winner Ricky Taylor will be part of Jota Cadillac for the World Endurance Championship’s Lone Star Le Mans occasion at Austin subsequent week.
The American will drive the #12 Cadillac V-Sequence.R alongside Norman Nato and Will Stevens on the Circuit of the Americas on 4-6 September, deputising for an injured Alex Lynn.
This may mark Taylor’s debut race outing with Cadillac’s manufacturing unit squad Jota, though he beforehand drove for the British outfit on the Goodwood Pageant of Velocity and the Bahrain rookie check final 12 months.
It’s going to even be his first look at a WEC race exterior the Le Mans 24 Hours, the place he has competed frequently since 2013.
However whereas he might not be so aware of common six-hour WEC races or the Jota group, he has intimate information of the Cadillac LMDh, which he races full-time for his father’s Wayne Taylor Racing group within the IMSA SportsCar Championship.
“I am actually excited to affix Cadillac Hertz Workforce Jota for the COTA spherical of the WEC championship,” stated Taylor.
“I’ve at all times been an enormous fan of the group and it was nice working with them this 12 months at Le Mans as a team-mate automobile. I do know Will and Norman nicely from their time with WTR. COTA is a tremendous monitor and will probably be nice to return to Austin.
“Cadillac Hertz Workforce Jota has been so sturdy all 12 months, we have all been watching and cheering them on. I’ll be doing my finest to assist contribute to a different good end result at COTA.”
#101 Cadillac WTR Cadillac V-Sequence.R: Ricky Taylor
Photograph by: Marc Fleury
Jota additional revealed that Lynn will probably be again behind the wheel for the ultimate two rounds of the season in Barcelona and Monza.
In a press launch, it acknowledged that the Briton is “progressing by way of a structured rehab and car-based restoration programme” after being sidelined from motion as a consequence of a neck damage.
With Taylor solely showing in Austin, Jota may once more run a two-driver crew on the 6 Hours of Fuji, which takes place three weeks after Lone Star Le Mans on 27 September.
Query marks additionally stay over Jota’s 2027 line-up, with hypothesis mounting that Taylor may be part of the group on a full-time foundation subsequent 12 months.
LMGT3 modifications
Other than Taylor’s addition, two additional modifications seem on the entry checklist for Lone Star Le Mans.
At TF Sport, manufacturing unit driver Nicky Catsburg returns behind the wheel of the Le Mans-winning #33 Corvette Z06 GT3.R after lacking the Sao Paulo 6 Hours as a consequence of a conflict with the IMSA occasion in Canada. Nicolas Varrone had taken his spot alongside Ben Keating and Jonny Edgar throughout the July race.
Eduardo ‘Dudu’ Barrichello may even be making his WEC comeback at Austin, sharing the #23 Coronary heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 with Jonny Adam and Grey Newell. Like Catsburg, Barrichello was additionally unavailable for WEC’s Brazilian spherical final month, with THOR having drafted Kobe Pauwels in his place.
The remainder of the sector stays the identical because the WEC heads to the US for the beginning of a busy second half of the season.
There’ll as soon as once more be 17 entries within the Hypercar class, with one other 18 in LMGT3 for a mixed complete of 35 automobiles.
With Jota bringing in Taylor, Aston Martin would be the solely group to discipline a two-driver line-up within the Hypercar class. Harry Tincknell and Tom Gamble will compete as a duo within the #007 Valkyrie LMH, whereas Alex Riberas and Marco Sorensen will share the #009 entry.
WEC Lone Star Le Mans – Full entry checklist
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