Filipe Albuquerque of the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-06 car suggested the wheel-detachment incident at Watkins Glen has put his team out of championship contention.
Into the final hour at the Six Hours of the Glen, the previous IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship round featuring the GTP class, the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura suffered an unusual incident whilst fighting for the lead.
Brief contact was made before the chicane with the #7 Porsche Penske 963 of Dane Cameron, as Albuquerque claimed the lead with a valiant manoeuvre to the left-side of Cameron.
Later on, co-driver Ricky Taylor pitted the #10 before returning to the track only to find himself stranded in the Esses after his rear-right wheel suddenly detached, unable to return to the pits.
Speaking to selected media ahead of this weekend’s Road America round, Albuquerque explained what occurred and why he suggested their championship fight is subsequently over.
“I called it straight away when I came to the pits, and it actually was [during the] red flag and I said to Ricky [about] that, because Ricky went out on the yellow and so he didn’t drive the car at all [yet]…
“… I was telling him, ‘Look, when I passed [Dane] Cameron onto the back-straight, I had a slight contact with him on the side and I really felt something on the rear-right wheel’… I think he squeezed me a bit too much. I was actually on the grass.
“… My car eventually wiggled a little bit and we touched twice. I mean 99% of the time, nothing happens with those side contacts but this time I was just unlucky with how the wheel-to-wheel happened.
“So my rear-right wheel hit on his rim or something some metalical thing because the car, straight away, felt weird and when I was on heavy braking, the car was shaking a bit.
“And the first thinking that we all had [when the wheel came off] was like, ‘Damn it, we didn’t tighten the wheel’.
“But actually what had happened was, where the nut screws on the bolt, it cracked up.”
The Glen race was disrupted by spontaneous heavy rain before Taylor’s Acura prolonged the seventh full-course-caution which allowed cars to pit for fuel and tyres before the race resumed.
Prior to the final hour, the red #40 WTRAndretti Acura was in the lead at the time before the blue #10 pitted from P2.
Albuquerque concluded: “Unfortunately, Watkins Glen, that failure that we had in the wheel, put us completely out of the championship.
“We were already in a tough position, but now we just go for single wins with all the risks we have and make it happen.”
The #10 missed out on the 350 points on offer for a win, instead scoring just 210 (classified P10) with 24 from qualifying seventh in the GTP class.
Porsche Penske’s #7 co-driven by Felipe Nasr and Cameron won at the Glen as the #10 sits sixth in the standings, 380 points away from the #7 championship-leaders.
The GTP championship fight is far from over as IMSA awards enough points to keep several cars within mathematical contention to the end.
Although the #10 Acura’s title ambitions sit further away, the team are evermore determined to add to their significant win in Detroit.
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