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Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport Expands To 2 Cars For 2024

Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport announced Tuesday morning (May 16) that they will be expanding to two full-time Acura ARX-06s in the 2024 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with Acura factory backing. Current full-time drivers Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor will remain in the No. 10 Acura for next season. The new car does not have a number or drivers as of yet.

“It has always been our plan to go to a two-car program,” said Wayne Taylor, co-owner of Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport. “There are so many advantages in being a two-car team and now, going up against all the other factory backed two-car efforts, it is vital. [Honda Performance Development] and ORECA have built an amazing race car. When you look back at the season so far, we’ve proved to be quickest almost wherever we go and I believe we now have the car to beat. With the combination of HPD, ORECA, Andretti Autosport and all our corporate partners, we have a really strong organization.”

2023 is the 20th season for WTR in motorsports. In that time in Grand-Am and IMSA, the organization has always been a single-car team. Ricky Taylor believes that the move is a big step for the team.

“Being a two-car team will allow us to really lean on our teammates to push us to be better, whether on the driver side or engineering side,” Ricky Taylor stated. “The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship weekends are so compressed now that getting multiple drivers through the car is difficult. Being able to take different paths and learn from each other is so important. Especially when everyone else has two cars. For us to get on the same program will be so beneficial. We have been dreaming about this for some time now. We have so many ideas on how to use it in a productive way and make us that much stronger.”

Assuming none of the current full-time operations scale back for 2024, this announcement would mean that there would be nine full-time factory-backed GTP teams on the grid for next season. Acura would be the only manufacturer with three factory-backed vehicles as Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian’s team. In addition, there is the customer Porsche for JDC-Miller MotorSports and potential additional customer entries. That would result in the largest full-time grid in the top class in WeatherTech since 2019, when there were 10 full-time teams.

Lamborghini does currently plan to be on the grid in 2024 with their currently unnamed Ligier-based prototype. However, they will only compete in the Michelin Endurance Cup races with an eye towards running full-time in 2025.

Tuesday’s announcement likely does not affect Andretti Autosport’s other operation in sports car racing. Last weekend, the team debuted at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in the GTD class. With LMP3 leaving the series at the end of the year, that team will likely move into the class on a more permanent basis.

Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.

Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.