Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R Trio’s Mission Is Clear at 20th Petit Le Mans

A little more than a minute and 10 seconds into Saturday’s 20th running of the Petit Le Mans – the iconic, season-ending IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship 10-hour endurance marathon at Road Atlanta – the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R full-time duo of brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor can clinch both the driver and team championships for the 2017 season.

With a whopping 29-point lead in the standings over the second-place No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R of Eric Curran and Dane Cameron, a 30-point lead over the No. 5 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R of Christian Fittipaldi and Joao Barbosa, and a 34-point lead over the No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Oreca LMP2 of Stephen Simpson and Misha Goikhberg, all the Taylors and the Konica Minolta Cadillac team need is to earn last-place points to secure both driver and team titles. To clinch the team title, they need to simply take the green flag to start the race, and to clinch the driver title, they need to simply complete one lap around the 2.54-mile, 12-turn Road Atlanta circuit – which takes roughly more than 70 seconds in a Prototype-class racecar.

Then it’s fun time for the Taylors and their third driver for the weekend – IndyCar Series and Indy 500 champion Ryan Hunter-Reay –for the next nine hours and 58 minutes, right? Wrong.

There is plenty more on their wish list, beginning with a Petit Le Mans victory to finish their magical season that started with five consecutive wins at the Rolex 24 At Daytona, the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, and the grand prix-style street races in Long Beach, California and downtown Detroit.

There’s also the prestigious Tequila Patron North American Endurance Cup championship-within-a-championship at stake, which is awarded to the highest-scoring drivers, teams and manufacturers in the four iconic marathons at Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International and Road Atlanta. The Taylors and the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R team trail the No. 5 Action Express Racing Cadillac DPi-V.R. drivers and team by two points in the Endurance Cup race thanks to a first-lap incident in July’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen that led to a sixth-place finish and unceremoniously ended the team’s winning streak at five races.

The Taylor brothers will be vying for their second Petit Le Mans victory this weekend. They made history in 2014 alongside veteran Italian Max “The Ax” Angelelli by becoming the first Americans to win the Petit Le Mans overall, and it came 16 years to the day since their father an team owner, three-time sportscar champion Wayne Taylor, won the inaugural Petit Le Mans in 1998. The Taylor brothers and Angelelli led 248 of the 400 race laps in winning the 2014 event.

Hunter-Reay, meanwhile, returns to the team with which he drove to a runner-up finish in the 2013 Rolex 24 At Daytona alongside Jordan Taylor and Angelelli, who went on to capture that year’s final GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series driver championship. The 36-year-old Hunter-Reay is the most successful active American driver in open-wheel competition. He won the 2012 IndyCar Series championship, the 2014 Indianapolis 500, was the 2008 Indy 500 Rookie of the Year, and has 16 career IndyCar victories and six career pole positions. He recently completed his eighth season driving for Andretti Autosport, racing car No. 28 to represent the 28 million people living with cancer worldwide.

With so much on the line this weekend at Road Atlanta, there will be no shortage of motivation in the No. 10 Konica Minolta Cadillac DPi-V.R. camp for the Taylor brothers, Hunter-Reay, and their highly focused cast of engineers, strategists, mechanics and pit crew.

Practice for Saturday’s 20th Petit Le Mans begins Thursday morning with Prototype-class qualifying set for 5:35 p.m. EDT Friday with live video at IMSA.tv beginning at 4:10 p.m. The green flag flies at 11:05 a.m. for Saturday’s 10-hour race with live TV coverage starting on FS1 with a prerace show at 10:30 a.m. FS2 picks up the coverage from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and from 5 to 9:30 p.m. IMSA.tv will stream the entire race live from 10:55 a.m. to 9:05 p.m. Live timing and scoring during all on-track sessions is available at IMSA.com and the IMSA smartphone app.