IMSA WEATHERTECH SPORTSCAR CHAMPIONSHIP: TIRERACK.COM BATTLE ON THE BRICKS

September 21, 2025

Jack Aitken

Filipe Albuquerque

Earl Bamber

Ricky Taylor

Frederik Vesti

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We'll get our post-race interviews started at the Tirerack.com Battle on the Bricks. We have our second place finishers in the GTP class in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V Series.R, Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque. This is their third podium in the last four races, and their second-place run here matches their season-best result, which was also second at Detroit.

Filipe, start us off, back on the podium, nice run for you guys. Just tell us what it means for you winning for Cadillac.

FILIPE ALBUQUERQUE: Obviously we're starting one, two, three in the Cadillac. So we had a very good performance this weekend. We felt very good from the first three practices. So that's good because we're closing down on the performance of the Cadillac with Wayne Taylor Racing.

The racing was going okay with Ricky going in front. Then we did a strategy that I think was the best for us and we threw me to the middle of the pack when running in the front, and then fighting in the middle is just aggressive.

But I want to say that I like where IMSA is going, to be honest, with the fighting on track and giving -- we need to give room to the others because it's easy for us to push others into the grass because until now that was how it was. But now the race director is giving drive throughs like no tomorrow, but we are getting behaved, and I'm included in that way.

But again, the drivers go on the limit of the race director, and I think this was nice and it was respectful racing. Unfortunately I was a puncture fighting which throw us a lap down, and it was frustrating because the pace was good.

And in the end it was just amazing racing, typical IMSA, Ricky doing a great job, and we were super lucky with the yellow come at the right time, and we secured P2 which today I must say we were lucky. But we'll take that because sometimes we are unlucky, and yeah, it's just frustrating, but today we came out with a good result.

THE MODERATOR: We'll slide over to Ricky. Obviously Filipe mentioned it there, but how big was that last yellow for you?

RICKY TAYLOR: Oh, it saved our race. I think the most important thing was a win for Cadillac today, and the 40 was guaranteed to make it to the end. I think the 31 was doing a very good energy save to make it to the end, and we were last at the restart. May as well try something. So they gave me an energy target, but track position was the most important thing, so that was kind of fun to be able to try and move forward.

Then once we kind of got to P4, it was looking like with the energy we'd saved, the short yellow at the end would be enough to make it, so why not try and go for the win with a full push. So it was fun.

So why not get up there and whether yellow comes out, a Cadillac could win and we could help the 31 because the 60 had such an energy advantage, or we get there and the other doesn't come out, and we gave ourselves the best shot.

Hats off to the guys. Congrats for Cadillac 1-2, and the car was good this weekend. So it's encouraging that maybe we're making some progress with the car.

THE MODERATOR: We'll slide over to our race winners in the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Racing Cadillac V-Series.R. from the center outward, Jack Aitken, Frederik Vesti, and Earl Bamber. 30th IMSA win for the team, fifth win for the Cadillac V-Series.R. First win of the season for Cadillac. That makes it 17 of 18 automotive manufacturers have now won a race in IMSA in 2025.

This is Jack's second IMSA win in his 21st start. His last win was Sebring in 2023. For Earl, this is his ninth IMSA win in his 82nd start. His last win was Sebring 2022. For Frederik, this is his first win in his sixth start. The No. 31 led 210 laps today. The next most led was in the GTD Class No. 34, which led 79 laps. Cadillac led all but seven laps today according to a stat that I was just provided.

Jack, start us off, first win of the season for Cadillac, big weekend here. What does it mean for you all?

JACK AITKEN: Yeah, it's a bit of a relief to get the first one under the belt for the year. I think we had a really awesome car today that was working well also in qualifying, and we were a little bit fortunate that the 60 had trouble in qually to take the pole.

But I think with the number of laps that we led today, it shows how well we were working as a team, and it was nice having the flexibility of three drivers. It was quite a hard day out, I think, with some extended runs of green.

Yeah, I think it was really fun race at the end, really tough, but had a lot of fun trying to hit the number and hold the track position at the same time.

Q. Frederik, as I mentioned, your first win in IMSA competition. What does that mean to you and especially to do it here at Indianapolis?

FREDERIK VESTI: Yeah, it's obviously been an amazing weekend. As Jack said, the car has been flying all weekend, which is always a pleasure to drive. But yeah, I joined this team at the beginning of the year with very high hopes, and the way they've welcomed me into this team made me feel welcome with Earl and Jack as my teammates. I've learned a lot, and to take the first win here in Indianapolis is just amazing.

I'm just excited for the future. Yeah, that's all I have to say.

Q. Earl, it's been a little while since your last win in IMSA, but what does it mean to get back?

EARL BAMBER: Yeah, it's awesome to get back in Victory Lane, but I think it's also really great for Cadillac, for Whelen. We had really high hopes at the start of the season. We've had a lot of quick cars, but just hasn't really rolled our way. We've been working day in, day out to try and get this win.

It's really nice to be back on the top step of the podium. I think it's great for the team, and yeah, just have to thank everyone for the hard work in the background. There's been a massive amount of stuff from Cadillac, through updates, through winter, throughout the season. Sonny with his trust, he's on the timing stand with us every weekend cheering there.

It's special now looking towards Petit, the last race of the season, and Daytona, we feel like we're building really good momentum and a great foundation right now.

Q. Ricky, with that early puncture in hour 3, that set you off sequence. Is that sort of what led you to where you guys were at the end of the race by not having enough energy to go to the finish if it had stayed green?

RICKY TAYLOR: It definitely changed our day. The first -- actually the first stop for Filipe changed our day. I think track position was so key, and Filipe was just in the mix with everybody and got unlucky with that puncture. Then we were just fighting to stay not two laps down because pit lane is so long here, and the lap is quite short, so anything goes wrong and you get stuck a lap down.

We were fighting not to get stuck a lap down, and actually had to short fill a couple times to beat the leader out to where we just gave ourselves the best shot at getting our lap back. It took a lot gambling, and you're just putting yourself more and more in the hole by short-filling the car each stop after that.

Then we got lucky -- so we went from being unlucky for the first half to very lucky in the second half with those well-timed yellows.

The first one was lucky to get our lap back. Then we were kind of in line with everybody, and then it was just a gamble on what we wanted to go for, and what we went for, we happened to get lucky with as well, with that last yellow.

Q. Jack, what made the Cadillacs better than everybody else today? We were talking about the Acuras maybe having the ultimate pace, but we ended up with a Cadillac 1-2.

JACK AITKEN: I think we've shown in the past that we can be quite strong over a stint and take care of the tire and hold it in that nice operating window in terms of temperature. The hard is a particularly tricky one with the warmup, but also there is a potential to use it up and to soften at the end of the stint. There's a lot of pickup, a lot of marbles and a lot of rubbish you have to deal with. So it's not an easy tire to hold in that sweet spot, and I think the Caddy does a better job of it than the Acura.

Generally when I was around those guys, it seemed like we had the better of them in the more technical sections. That definitely helped us in the end.

Q. Jack, with less than 10 minutes to go in the race, you're driving along trying to focus and everything, coming up front, then full course yellow comes up. What's the mentality in the cockpit at that time, and how did you mentally prepare for the last two minutes of the race when the green flag finally came out, and were you hoping for the green to come out?

JACK AITKEN: I mean, the race had changed quite a bit in the last 15, 20 minutes because of the 10 coming through and offering their support. They charged through very quickly, and up to that time I was in quite an intense battle both to hit a fuel number and also to keep first the BMW and then the Acura behind, and that was quite -- taking a lot of energy and focus, and then to have another Caddy up there was quite a relief.

But then it did turn into a bit of a shootout at the end, and fuel obviously then was good to go for the end. I think we were going to make it, but it changed the dynamic into a bit of a last-lap shootout. And thankfully everything went supremely for the last two laps, but it was just about refocusing and gearing up for full push instead of lifting off halfway down the straight.

Q. What was the sequence for the last restart there, picking when to go and timing and everything? How much thought did you have to put into that process?

JACK AITKEN: I mean, got a restart, something we've done a lot of, so on that side it wasn't anything different. Like I said, it was more about getting back into the rhythm of full push and just trying to bring the car home because we were in a great position with Caddy's 1-2, and we could only make mistakes at that point. We did just that, brought it home, and got a great result for Cadillac.

Q. Frederik, diverting your career focus as you did last year is not easy for a young driver, but in the middle stages of the race, you had this great stint where you were holding off the 93 Acura, and then you were able to break its charge. Do you feel like you're getting the hang of prototype racing?

FREDERIK VESTI: Yeah, it's fair to say it's quite a shift coming from the Formula ladder back in Europe. I've raced there my whole career, and switching to prototype is definitely a challenge, probably more of a challenge than I actually expected.

I'm still world in the Formula world, which is good, but I love my racing in prototypes. And it's actually teaching me a lot of things. The longest race I've done before with Endurance was one hour, and now we are just going on and on, which is cool.

Obviously the traffic is probably the main thing, and the IMSA traffic is something else. But yeah, I'm starting to enjoy it more and more and get the hang of it. Yeah, it's amazing to get the win together with the team.

Q. Given how well Watkins Glen played out where the 31 was super, super quick, and it was just an almost energy mileage thing at the end, how sweet is it to have it turn out the way it did today, especially before that late yellow? It looked like it was going to be a mileage race too.

EARL BAMBER: Yeah, it was nice to finally get one. We'd sort of talked during the week, and we put ourselves in positions a lot this season to try and get a first win, and eventually one day the floodgates are going to open and it's going to work.

And I think Jack did an amazing job to hit the fuel numbers that he did. Yeah, that was incredible. But it also just shows that we've been working on a lot of stuff. We reviewed what happened in Watkins Glen, we sort of learned from it, but it was a real team effort. There was people on the timing stand, there was people back in the truck working out numbers, working on times.

At the end of the day, it's a big team sport. So it's us and the car, the guys on the timing stand, everyone back at Cadillac. It's very sweet to get that first win of the season because it would have been a bit of a hard year if we hadn't got one.