| Bamber, Tandy and Jordan Taylor Celebrate 10-Year Anniversary of 2015 Wins This Year June 13, 2025By Tony DiZinnoIMSA Wire Service |
| DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The only problem when talking with drivers about historic, memorable moments from their past is the realization in the present that we’re not as young as we used to be. When the question was posed to IMSA veterans Earl Bamber, Nick Tandy and Jordan Taylor that in 2025, they’d all be celebrating the 10-year anniversary of either their overall or class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans they achieved in 2015, the initial responses were similar. “Yes, sadly. You’re making me feel old, mate!” Bamber laughed. Tandy, one of Bamber’s co-drivers that day added, “Yeah, bloody hell, right that was a long time ago.” And Taylor, who scored a class win back then, agreed. “It’s hard to believe it was 10 years ago; it makes you feel a little older than I want to!” It’s a testament to these three drivers’ enduring presence in endurance sports car racing as some of the most successful, recognizable stars of their generation now in their mid-to-late 30s that they are still at the top of their game. But it’s fascinating to look back a decade ago. Tandy and Bamber were, in many respects, longshots when they combined with Formula 1 driver Nico Hulkenberg to win what was Porsche’s 17th overall victory in aboard their No. 19 Porsche 919 Hybrid, the team’s third car in the Le Mans Prototype 1 (LMP1) top class (above and below photos courtesy Porsche Newsroom archive). Tandy and Bamber were burgeoning GT aces-turned-new prototype drivers, which a decade later seems prescient as some of the first drivers of their era to make that move. Most top-class prototype manufacturers have developed prototype drivers from their internal GT pipeline. Taylor was a third driver, sharing the No. 64 Corvette Racing Corvette C7.R in GTE PRO with Oliver Gavin and Tommy Milner in what proved to be the lone Corvette that started after an accident in practice that sidelined the sister No. 63 car. Two moments from this trio stand out years later: Tandy’s epic overnight stint behind the wheel and Taylor’s efforts to enhance his co-drivers, while also providing sometimes tense, sometimes humorous social media snapshots in real-time. Both prevailed. |
| “It was a great time of my life with the 919, honestly,” Tandy reflected. “You know, it was our second race with the with the car. And obviously we’d done quite a fair bit of testing, but it was still kind of a new car to us. But eventually, a car becomes an extension of yourself and you know, that’s when you know you can do anything with it. “During that race, it was like myself and that machine just became one. It was a really nice time to be driving a race car and racing a race out there in the dark by myself, you know, not much radio chatter, knowing you’re gonna be out there for three, three and half hours. trying to win the most important race in the world.” Taylor’s GT win with Corvette came as charges primarily from AF Corse’s Ferraris fell by the wayside in the waning hours. It’d been four years since Corvette won Le Mans. As it turned out, this was the last Corvette win at Le Mans until 2023 when Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating and Nico Varrone shared the new Corvette C8.R in the final GTE-specification race there. “It’s obviously good memories that I think back on, and still kind of hard to believe it all happened the way it did,” Taylor explained. “With us entering the race with only one car, everything just went our way. That’s kind of what you need at Le Mans, you need everything to kind of click and go your way and have some luck on your side.” Fast forward 10 years to the present day of 2025, and all three have a chance to win in the top class of Hypercar, albeit in three different scenarios compared to 2015. Bamber starts best of the bunch in second, Tandy in fifth and Taylor in 14th in the top class. |
| Taylor enters with a family affair as he’ll race alongside brother Ricky and Filipe Albuquerque aboard the No. 101 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R (pictured left, courtesy Cadillac Racing). It’ll be one of four Cadillacs in the race, along with fellow IMSA entry Cadillac Whelen (No. 311) and the pair of FIA World Endurance Championship-entered Nos. 12 and 38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA cars. This is WTR’s first Le Mans appearance as a unit and they’ve not hid the need to lean on their Cadillac Racing teammates with past Le Mans experience. “Obviously, it’s the team’s first time there, so not just learning things on the track; it’s all the logistics of getting there, getting the people there, understanding the rulesets, and obviously making a fast car,” Jordan Taylor explained. “There’s a lot of a lot of hours going into it from the engineering side and from the team side. We’re excited to be competing for an overall win and representing Cadillac and it’s a huge stage. It’s a ton of competition, but I think everyone’s working toward battling for a podium.” Bamber has a somewhat unique perspective. The former Porsche pilot has raced the last two Le Mans with Cadillac Racing in the Chip Ganassi Racing-prepared entry and finished on the podium in 2023. He was set to test with his IMSA program, the No. 311 Whelen Cadillac on Le Mans test day but returned to his full-season FIA WEC No. 38 Jota Cadillac for Le Mans race week itself. Bamber has the bandwidth of understanding multiple Cadillac teams, all working towards a unified Cadillac Racing approach. “The biggest goal for all of us is just that a Cadillac wins the race. That’s the most important thing is to get them on the top,” Bamber said. “Driving both programs this year provides us a lot of strengths. We have a great relationship simultaneously between the Whelen guys and the JOTA guys; we’ve got great collaboration and rapport with each other.” But Tandy and Felipe Nasr enter on the precipice of history. Having won IMSA’s first two historic endurance races of the year, the Rolex 24 At Daytona and Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, they have a chance to become the first drivers ever to sweep the traditional endurance sports car racing “Triple Crown” with overall victories in all three races in the same year. They race in the No. 4 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 they’ll share with Pascal Wehrlein. Tandy and Nasr’s Daytona and Sebring teammate, Laurens Vanthoor, also has the same opportunity but in a different car, the team’s FIA WEC-entered No. 6 Porsche 963. “Looking back, it was just an amazing, life-changing weekend, honestly,” Tandy reflected on the 2015 Le Mans win. “Knowing how much it means from winning there before just makes you even more hungry to do it again.” |
