Wayne Taylor Racing loses third-place finish in Rolex 24
Last-minute driver change not enough to keep Jordan Taylor from exceeding time limit.
Photo by: Jamey Price
With 11 minutes to go in the 2015 Rolex 24 at Daytona, driver Jordan Taylor dove into the pits for an unplanned driver change with brother Ricky in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Chevrolet Corvette DP. Jordan, the team thought, was about to exceed the four-hour time limit for a driver in each six-hour period.
It was all for nothing. An IMSA review showed this week that Jordan had already exceeded the time limit by at least 15 minutes. IMSA has dropped the team's third-place finish to last place in the Prototype standings, which is 16th, and their 31 points has been cut to 16.
A few minutes over
“Obviously, we are disappointed that inadvertently having Jordan drive a few more minutes than permitted has resulted in the issuance of these penalties,” said Wayne Taylor. “We fully understand IMSA’s stance on this and will not challenge the penalties levied against us. We will move forward and continue to do our very best to succeed in our goal of winning this championship, which is one of the most difficult championships in all of motor racing. We look forward to the next round of the Tudor United SportsCar Championship at Sebring.”
The team had made a miscalculation on the total of Jordan Taylor’s two stints in the race’s final six hours in the Wayne Taylor Racing car, so they called Jordon to the pits for a driver change with brother Ricky. At the time, the team thought Jordan had been in the car less than four hours.
A shot at the win lost
The driver change, and a resulting drive-through penalty when Jordan came in while the pits were closed, essentially cost the team a shot at the win.
IMSA Race Director Beaux Barfield said that the rule book allows for the penalty for that infraction to be exclusion from the race, but Barfield and IMSA decided that the penalty did not match the violation in this case. The third-place prize money will go to the No. 90 VisitFlorida.com Corvette DP, elevated from fourth. That team, with drivers Richard Westbrook, Michael Valiente and Mike Rockenfeller, will get third-place points as well.
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