DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — There’s no questioning the motivation and desire for Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing and, in particular, its long-tenured No. 10 car to resume its usual place at or near the top of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship podium in Grand Touring Prototype.
Luckily, a trip to General Motors’ headquarters in Detroit has historically been ripe for some home cooking.
Each of the last two years, the No. 10 car has arrived in Detroit after a tricky start to the new season. In both 2024 and 2025, the No. 10 car of Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor failed to finish better than fifth in the first four races. In 2024, the team entered Detroit eighth in GTP points (305 points off the lead) and in 2025, seventh (412 back).
Somehow the luck has taken a further hit in 2026 because this year the No. 10 car hasn’t finished better than 10th, and the Taylor/Albuquerque pair rank 14th in driver points with the No. 10 car 11th in the GTP standings, 485 off leader Laurin Heinrich. The sister No. 40 car of Louis Deletraz and Jordan Taylor sits ninth in points, 343 in arrears.
Befitting of the city itself, “new Detroit” – the 1.645-mile, nine-turn street circuit – has served as the home of the start of WTR’s comeback with the No. 10 car and served as a catalyst for a second half surge in the remaining five rounds of the GTP season.
Ricky Taylor’s pass for the win on Mathieu Jaminet’s Porsche 963 in 2024 marked the No. 10 car’s return to victory lane in an Acura ARX-06, while last year they nearly won aboard the team’s now-Cadillac V-Series.R before Renger van der Zande made a late-race win pass.
“I’m not ashamed of finishing second when it was such a cool fight for the for the win on the last moment,” Albuquerque said on a pre-Detroit, IMSA-hosted media conference. “Renger did an amazing move on Ricky, which you need to recognize when it’s a good move.”
In both years, the No. 10 car finished the final five races of the year with three top fives apiece and leapt to sixth in points. That’s certainly not the standard the team expects, but it at least serves proof positive of how Detroit has been where the season has turned the corner.
Albuquerque didn’t mince words about the struggles but was also bullish on history repeating itself for a third year in a row.
“The new Detroit has been kind to the 10 car,” he said. “Two years ago, we won not with true pace, but on strategy. Last year, we did well with a good comeback from starting from P4.
“We want to catch a break, to be honest, in this season, and hopefully in Detroit again. In 2024, what we did was a good ‘break point.’ Let’s hope that it is again. So, we are working together to understand the car and to be better and come back on top.”
Working together to understand the car is a key point. Though this is Wayne Taylor Racing’s second year back with Cadillac, the team is five races into understanding a raft of aerodynamic upgrades and Michelin’s new-for-2026 GTP tire.
It’s worth noting the No. 10 car finished third on the road in Sebring before the car was found to have camber in excess of the permitted tire pressure limit during post-race technical inspection. Additionally, Deletraz in the No. 40 car won the Motul Pole Award last time out at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. So flashes of WTR brilliance have certainly emerged in the opening rounds.
“We are way better this year on pace,” he said, “but we see sometimes the 10, sometimes the 40, be good in alternating on pace. We’re trying to lock that down to both be consistent on the front row. We have not achieved that yet.
“Last year, I remember qualifying was tricky to get the tires working. But this is a completely different environment and there’s a new aero package as well.”
June, of course, is a busy month for Albuquerque, the Taylor family and the Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing organization as a whole. The team returns to the 24 Hours of Le Mans with its No. 101 Cadillac V-Series.R chassis before coming back to the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen at the end of the month. At the latter venue, WTR scored its first GTP double podium in 2025.
“The biggest was last year because everything was new,” Albuquerque explained. “When you have two cars, you take half the crews of each team and fly there and go. I think in the end it’s just a learning process.
“I think doing Le Mans makes us better because we’re learning more about everything. There’s a test day, which we have time to do stuff on the car, and we learn about the tires there in Le Mans, we will drive with both compounds as well. We get to play with (Cadillac Hertz Team) JOTA together on the same weekend. They’re supportive. So it’s a learning process. So I think of it as a positive.”
But first comes Detroit and all that comes with it. It’s a city where Wayne Taylor Racing as an organization has won five times – four of five years on the old Raceway on Belle Isle Park from 2013 to 2017, with Ricky Taylor part of three of those wins. Removing the pressure and treating it as another race, however, helps.
“I think we just feel prouder if we win in front of the home race and the bosses are there,” Albuquerque said. “I think winning is winning. It doesn’t matter where you are winning.
“It’s cool to tell them in person what we are planning to do and how it happens. Because sometimes there is a story to it. It’s better than reading because when you read a report, it may sound like excuses. When they’re there, and you’re explaining, they have the full picture of it.”