Jordan Taylor on Le Mans, Rejoining WTRAndretti & NASCAR

These days, after a number of years driving the factory Corvettes, Taylor is back with Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Global, driving the No. 40 Acura ARX-06 in the GTP class. Frontstretch sat down with Taylor to talk about his transition back to prototypes and more.

Phil Allaway, Frontstretch: You had a last-minute deal to go race at Le Mans in the LMGT3 class in a Ferrari. How did that come together?

Jordan Taylor: Yeah, it was a bit of a late call. My buddy Marco Sorensen reached out and asked if I was interested in doing Le Mans.

I was free that weekend, and he knew of a team that was looking for a driver, a Danish group, and he’s Danish. I immediately said yes since I was free. We quickly got in contact with Johnny Laursen from the team, Formula Racing. Quickly made the deal, flew over to Paul Ricard for a one-day test, got to know the team, then I was able to go to the race. Good timing.

Allaway: We’re talking about a Ferrari 296 GT3 here. It’s a car that I don’t believe that you would have driven prior to that test. What did you think about it?

Taylor: It was much different. Much of my background is in [General Motors] cars in GT between Corvettes, Cadillacs and Camaros, so it was much different. The ergonomics and layout inside the car [were] much different.

Much more of [an] on-the-nose sensation, but at Le Mans, it’s a place where you’re always searching for front grip. I felt like it suited the track well. Unfortunately, the race didn’t go totally our way.

We got hit in the middle of the night. [Gregoire Saucy] just made a very late move in the first chicane, might have gotten in the water. Judging by how fast he went into the corner, he wasn’t going to make the corner anyway, even if I wasn’t there.

Note: Saucy was officially blamed for this incident by the stewards. He was punished with a time penalty and a penalty point on his license.

My teammate, Conrad [Laursen], who’s only 18 years old, set the fastest lap of…