INDIANAPOLIS (Sept. 21, 2025) – An interview with GTP/overall first- and second-place finishers and race winners from GTD PRO, LMP2 and GTD at the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks.
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 you 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.
THE MODERATOR: We’ll start at the far end with our GTD Pro winners in the No. 64 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3. All the way on the end, Mike Rockenfeller, Sebastien Priaulx. This is the team’s 11th IMSA victory, third one of the season. The team’s last win was at Detroit in June. For Mike this is his seventh win coming in his 95th start. For Seb this is his fourth win coming in his 27th start.
We’ll start with Seb all the way on the far end. Second win of the year, third win of the season for Ford Multimatic Motorsports. All pretty important events. Not that any event isn’t important in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar competition, but to win for the team at Daytona and then at Detroit and now here at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, put that into some context for us and what it means.
SEBASTIEN PRIAULX: I think firstly just want to thank Mike and Ford Multimatic Motorsport. What a race they gave us today with the car, and overall just a great performance from everybody. Mike drove really well. It was a team effort at the end of the day, so firstly that was really what I wanted to say.
But yeah, to win here on the bricks is something special. Definitely some history here, and yeah, just to win here is something that I won’t forget.
It was a tough start, qualifying went great, and to be up there leading, it’s the first time for me really being out leading which was great, and yeah, I felt really comfortable out there and it was great to win.
THE MODERATOR: Mike, really tough racing all week, all six hours in GTD Pro. How was it from your seat? Obviously there was quite a lot going on there.
MIKE ROCKENFELLER: Yeah, I want to thank Ford and Multimatic for sure. They gave us a great car. Sebby did a great job today but I also don’t want to forget we had a third guy on the car which was Jackson Daniels, and I think IMSA did a fantastic thing with Camp Boggy Creek to basically have those kids here and the families. He brought luck to us. Yesterday I had a really bad qually. I think the car was really out of balance and we tweaked it for today.
But you’re really disappointed sometimes in racing, but then you meet those people and especially Jackson, how strong he is. It was really inspiring especially as a dad to see that, and it puts it all in a different perspective.
Thanks to everybody. I think we had a great race. Very clean. We stayed out of trouble. We had to fight hard many times in this race to make our way up to the front, and yeah, it was just an honor to drive the car today.
Sometimes some small setup changes make it from kind of undrivable to a perfect car, and it was really nice today.
THE MODERATOR: We’ll start with the No. 11 TDS Racing Oreca LMP 2, 07. This is Mikkel Jensen, Steven Thomas and Hunter McElrea from the middle out. This is the team’s third consecutive victory here at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the team’s fifth in the WeatherTech Championship. The team’s last win was Motul Petit Le Mans in 2024.
For Steven this is his sixth win coming in his 34th start; Mikkel, 11th win in his 31st start; and Hunter’s third win in his 10th start.
Mikkel, start us off. Very eventful race for the LMP2 class throughout. What did it take to survive and win for this team?
MIKKEL JENSEN: I mean, we always have a great car coming here. I think it shows after three wins in a row, so we’re very confident here. It got a little — to be a fuel saving race in P2, which is not really the case normally, which made it difficult. You didn’t know what the strategy was of the others really after the first stint where you could see how many laps everybody were doing. We were afraid that we were over-consuming and not doing enough laps. But I think after the first pit stop we saw that everything was under control compared to what the other guys are doing, and from then on we were quite comfortable and just tried to stay out of trouble.
Had to get the United cars — yeah, had a late dive on the outside on Paul Di Resta, locked up a bit because we had to go for it. Got back to third as the other United car came through and had to pass both of them again. It was a hard race, and once we got in the lead, we just had the pace to pull away. Thanks to TDS Racing for once again a great car and my teammates for bringing the car in the good end of the field to make my job easier.
THE MODERATOR: Steven, obviously there’s some magic to this place. Tell us about it and what it means for you to win here again.
STEVEN THOMAS: I think we were fortunate to race at two iconic places in this series, Indy and Daytona, and there is — every track is fantastic, but the history at those two places is pretty amazing. So to be able to come back here, and IMSA has raced here in LMP2 three times, to win all three and get to kiss the bricks three straight times, that’s special for anybody in racing.
Q. Hunter, three wins in ten races, pretty good winning percentage. How much easier do those two guys make your job here?
HUNTER McELREA: Very. A lot more. No, I’m just lucky, mate, honestly, to be part of such a good program. Steven is kind of proving he’s one of if not the best Bronze going around right now. Mikkel is obviously established enough; I don’t need to speak for him.
For myself, just to be a part of that, I’m pretty new to endurance racing still. Kind of ride off the coattails of that is not a bad job. They’ve won three times in a row here. I’ve obviously been two of the three. But I won in INDY NXT in 2023 as well. So I’m jumping on the three-in-a-row train. So it feels good. We needed this. I think everyone in the group needed it.
Yeah, just really happy. Happy for these guys, happy for the team, and honestly, happy for myself, too.
Q. Mikkel, there was sort of a big pileup of the two United cars, and then Tom Dillmann with about a half hour to go. Did you think that helped relieve some pressure you might have had at the end?
MIKKEL JENSEN: I don’t know. We pulled a great gap of I think 23 seconds before the yellow at the end. So obviously it made the gap bigger than it would have been, but I think we were comfortable the fastest two days. I don’t think it made any difference. At the end we had the yellow anyway, which spiced up everything with two laps to go.
Q. Rocky, can you put this victory into perspective? It was a really tough fight out there in GTD Pro today, and what made you guys stand out from your viewpoint?
MIKE ROCKENFELLER: Yeah, it was a tough fight. I think almost everybody kind of was in the lead for a while, I don’t know. But we were, I would say, strong over long run. I think that was our strength. We could see that in free practice already.
Like I said before, I think in qually, we had some mistakes on the setup, which we found after, and that happens, and the balance was off. We were, I think, more in the back than we should have been, but our sister car showed great pace. They were P2 on the grid and we weren’t. Starting from P7 you have to race clean and make your passes and smart moves.
It’s a long race, a lot of stuff happens, and you have to be a bit lucky. Then we got a penalty. We were again in the back, and yeah, then it was just full push to the front. I think you have to have the pace, right, and like I say, it’s important to be consistent over a stint, and I think that was the strength of our car today.
Q. For Mikkel, Hunter or Steven, last year winning here, two years ago without Hunter winning here, how different was the prep going into this race compared to last year, and did you have to change anything going into this race to pull off a three-peat?
STEVEN THOMAS: I would say we tested as hard this year. We really got after it in our two days of testing here, just like we never won here before. But I would say the difference was in this test is I think we made a real step, at least with coaching Hunter that day, I think I made a real step in driving here. I think this was maybe my best stint ever as a Bronze today. I think that really helped with the coaching.
And I’ll tell you, these two guys, they’re probably the fastest on the grid. Even if they just make a small step, they get a few more, even a tenth, it can make a difference because the pros are all so close. We tried to approach it like yes, we’re already at this level on this track, but we need to be better. Honestly, we got better at the testing, and when we showed up here in FP1 we were better than we’ve ever been.
Q. Seb, talk to me about that move you made for the lead with about 40 minutes to go.
SEBASTIEN PRIAULX: Yeah, I think I just want to say thanks to IMSA for making it more cleaner racing. That’s made a lot of help for us to actually race cleanly and actually it’s more fun I would say. Yeah, it was a nice pass. I felt like I executed a perfect move there, and he went wide, and that was it really. It was the move for the win, I think, really. Easy to get stuck behind there. You need to be assertive, and I was, and just had to get it done. So yeah, happy with that.
Q. Seb, to add on that, you’ve won sprint races before in WeatherTech, but I think this is your first endurance race win. Talk about the difference in the approach to doing a six-hour, especially in a two-driver setting?
SEBASTIEN PRIAULX: Yeah, actually I didn’t know that. It was my first endurance win. Yeah, so I mean, every time I feel like it’s the same sort of mindset. Definitely maybe a bit more hours out, but at the end of the race it’s the same sort of feeling, all the hours out. I drive every race the same really. But it’s nice to win here, and the traffic here is actually worse than most places.
It reminds me a lot of Atlanta. It’s very tight and a lot of stuff to move out of the way. A lot of times I felt like I could easily make a mistake and turn in and hit in P2 and that’s it, because they’re quite equal speeds at the end of the straight. It’s quite similar.
I think it’s great to win here, and yeah, all focused now on the next one really.
Q. Mikkel, you touched on it a little bit about how you were able to build such a gap on that last stint before the final yellow. What made the car so good? Obviously I’m sure you knew that the 04 was going to have to pit at some time so you were just building the gap on everybody else. What made it so strong?
MIKKEL JENSEN: I think we have a great platform of the car. It’s very stable. We were running quite stiff. It just makes the car work very well when you’re alone. It’s obviously less beneficial because you don’t make the aerodynamics work properly when you’re behind other cars and that’s also when we get stuck in traffic it can’t show the full potential, but whenever we’re clear and get comfortable through the traffic, the car is really, really quick, and we were able to just build a gap.
THE MODERATOR: We’ll welcome up our GTD winners to conclude our interviews here at the Tirerack.com Battle on the Bricks. We have the trio of drivers from the No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari 296 GT3. From your left to right, Brendan Iribe, Ollie Millroy and Frederik Schandorff. This is the first win for the team, first win for all three drivers. For Brendan this is his 38th IMSA start, Ollie his 16th start, and for Frederik his 34th start.
Brendan, first win here at Indianapolis Motor Speedway; if you could just put that into some context for us. What does it mean to you to win in IMSA?
BRENDAN IRIBE: Like you said, we’ve been at it for quite a while. I didn’t know it was 38 IMSA races. Sounds like more than it feels. But it is a great feeling. This is an iconic track. It’s a beautiful track. I can’t wait to kiss the bricks. We haven’t done that yet, but we’re excited to.
So if there’s a place to win, this is an awesome place, and it really feels good, especially after how hard the team has worked. Just really proud of everybody on the team, all the engineers and the drivers and everybody does such a big job, such a good job, and puts their heart and soul into it. So it’s awesome to finally be up here. We should really have everybody up here, but we get to represent.
Big thank you to the drivers, too, Ollie and Freddy, just did an incredible job. I think Ollie said it best at the very end, when the final safety car came out, he said, there’s no better person to have in the car at this time than Freddy. That’s how we all feel in the team.
Luckily it all worked out, and here we are, and we’re really excited and proud to be here.
Q. Ollie, the team has been close to wins a number of times here. What made the difference today?
OLLIE MILLROY: Well, I didn’t realize until this evening we’ve had six second places in IMSA. I’m glad I didn’t know that; otherwise, I might’ve given up by now.
Yeah, look, we’ve had great performance. We had a successful run with the McLaren for a couple of years and then we switched to the Ferrari actually at Indianapolis last year was our first race with the Ferrari. So it was a huge task for the team to get their head around the car.
But we’ve been really fast and competitive most of this season. Just shows what an amazing job the team and the engineering team as well have done with the car.
But IMSA as we know, that’s just a small part of it. The races are wild, especially here at Indianapolis. You don’t relax for one minute. There’s always something happening.
It was great that Brendan did an amazing job for the first couple of hours, gave us the car in a sensible position in one piece as well, and gave us the opportunity to sort of go for the win. So finally, finally our first win. It feels like such a relief, and hopefully now that we’ve got that one out of the way it will give us some momentum going into Petit as well.
Q. Frederik, you brought it home. Any concerns with that last yellow and pressure from behind? Just take us through how you worked that last run to the checkered flag to bring home the win.
FREDERIK SCHANDORFF: I would say I was a bit concerned the last hour when I had the lead. Obviously when you are counting laps down, 35 laps to go, 34, it was quite a long race still there at that moment. I was just really excited that we actually finally finished the race in the lead.
The team really deserve this. It’s such a pleasure being here. The team is just doing a really, really good job. They are showing that we were the fastest McLaren last year and now we are also the fastest Ferrari out there. It’s really impressive what the team have done and just really proud that we get the win as well. Obviously I could live without the safety car because that made it a little bit more exciting, but I think it’s probably more exciting for the guys in the pit.
Obviously we’ve done a lot of restarts, and I love the restarts in IMSA. That’s some of the best part of this championship. I think it’s really good fun for the spectators and also for the drivers.
Obviously I just had a really good start, so the last two laps were actually not that stressful. They were long, but at least I had a small gap to the second guy.
Q. Frederik or Ollie, can you expand on the evolution to switch to the Ferrari and what kind of gains you’ve made over the course of the last 12 months?
OLLIE MILLROY: It’s a very different philosophy to the McLaren. We kind of went into it thinking, oh, it should be quite similar, engine is roughly the same place, it kind of looks similar. You’re not going from a mid engine to a front engine car or anything like that. Actually because obviously it’s been built and designed by Oreca who are prototype manufacturers, it’s actually a very different philosophy.
We were okay here last year. We struggled a bit for pace. Then we went to Petit Le Mans, and Fred and I got out of the car after FP1 and I think neither of us ever wanted to get back in a race car ever again; it was terrifying.
So we realized what we thought we’d learnt from Indy was probably the wrong way, so then we went back for the race, and actually in Petit Le Mans the thing was on rails. It was a great car to drive and we saw then the potential of the Ferrari.
It’s still a relatively new car anyway, especially to us, but obviously it’s only in its second season, so there’s still some teething problems which we’re figuring out and Ferrari are figuring out, but generally on the whole the performance that we’ve had throughout the season has been really strong.
It’s been a massive task for the team, and they’ve done a really great job.
Q. Brendan, I believe this extends your lead in the Bronze Cup standings heading into Petit and that very important invite to Le Mans. What’s your thought heading into this race?
BRENDAN IRIBE: I think it all comes down to the last race, just how IMSA and the fans want it. Not exactly how we want it, but we’ll take it, and it’ll be exciting. Can’t wait for Petit.
Q. If you were to win, would it be your plan to take the Ferrari to Le Mans, much like you did with the McLaren two years ago?
BRENDAN IRIBE: Yes.
Q. Does this win — you stood on the top step of the podium at Mid-Ohio in ’22. Obviously that wasn’t to be, but did you expect — did you imagine it would have taken this long to get a proper win at least, an official win in IMSA?
BRENDAN IRIBE: Definitely didn’t think it would take this long. I still spiritually count that win. But rules are rules, and I understand.
So it’s good to be back, and it’s good to be here. I think we’ve been working on it for a long time, and the team has been continuing to get better, and we have been getting our heads around the Ferrari.
I think they did a remarkable job, like Ollie was saying, really getting up to speed quick. I think we’ve shown that we have one of the most competitive if not the most competitive Ferrari on the grid, and the drivers have just done an incredible job themselves pushing forward.
Yeah, it’s great to be here and great to be in the Ferrari.
Q. I believe there was a very large piece of bodywork that came off the car with a couple hours to go. Mentally how do you put that behind you when you’ve got two hours to go in a race like this at a track like this and you’re still fighting for the lead up front?
BRENDAN IRIBE: I think you don’t put it behind you. It’s in your mind the whole time. Freddy was the one in the car. We were panicking, I think, in the pits. I think Ollie measured his heart rate, and it was the same as when he was in the car driving when he was on the pit watching the car go past every lap, just praying that it still had the bonnet on. How did it feel, Freddy?
FREDERIK SCHANDORFF: It didn’t feel nice, obviously. Also, especially because we’d actually been leading Daytona quite a few times, and always something happening. Then I thought, oh, no. Feeling a little bit (indiscernible) there. I did expect hopefully they could fix it, but I wouldn’t expect that actually we were able to fight for for the win in the end. I was just super pissed about it, but I had to stay cool because the worst thing you can is, like, panic and get frustrated and do mistakes.
Obviously I did a lot of fuel saving that first stint, so it actually ended up the competitors ahead of us, I think they did less than we did, so some of them, they actually had to do the emergency stop, so we actually gained a little bit from the bonnet, and the team was really fast in the pit stop to put a new one back on again, and then it was all fine.
But I did pay a little bit more attention to it when I was driving the last hour.
BRENDAN IRIBE: And we were praying.
Q. Freddy, was that the most tense you’ve ever been in the car when that situation happens, or was there another time in your racing career that you were in a more intense situation or a more hectic situation?
OLLIE MILLROY: It was worse for us watching.
FREDERIK SCHANDORFF: It was a very tense hour. I haven’t seen my heart rate yet, but it was quite tense out there, especially after that happened, as well, and then obviously I tried to be as smart as possible to maybe sometimes taking a little bit of risk over the curbs to not make it have so much bouncing over there, and luckily it stayed.
But I would say always a safety car in the end is — pretty much every IMSA race is having that, so it’s always a bit exciting. Normally we like it because we’re not in the lead, but when we are in the lead we’d prefer not to have it.
Q. Brendan, this is something I wanted to ask since Watkins Glen when it become you versus Orey for the golden ticket to Le Mans. Do you lament that there’s not more competition for the Akin Award in IMSA these days?
BRENDAN IRIBE: Yeah, I wish there was more competition. I talk to the IMSA guys all the time about what ideas do they have, do I have some ideas, what ideas do we have together on how we can attract more bronzes to the field.
Personally I love being here with all the silvers. I would like more bronzes on the grid, just more cars in general would be awesome. But I joined and I’m here to compete against silvers, and I love doing that. So that’s why I’m here in IMSA.
FREDERIK SCHANDORFF: But what would be beneficial is if there was a slight advantage of having a bronze driver because right now there’s no advantages at all, so if there could be, small thing, an extra set of tires so Brendan could do another qually sim in practice or whatever, just to have small benefit for him actually having a bronze because right now Brendan doesn’t have any benefit at all from this.
Q. Just to clarify, so when the bonnet popped off, did you have to put a new one on, or it did not pop off, because it went yellow right after that happened?
BRENDAN IRIBE: Yeah, the bonnet popped off and it went yellow, and we put a new one on in the pit when we pulled in.
Q. Brendan, you’ve obviously been here 38 starts. How much further do you feel you’ve come as a driver over the course of that time period because you’ve shared a lot of the racing with these guys.
BRENDAN IRIBE: I think they could tell you probably better than me. I feel like I always have a huge amount to improve on every qualifying, every race. I tend to look back and think, I could have done such a better job. There’s still so much to learn.
The thing personally I like the most about IMSA and what I feel like I have learned and improved on just through trial and error, 38 times, is managing the traffic and really being able to try to be consistent and still maintain good lap times, lap after lap, over a couple hours while you have multiple classes of prototypes going by you at a much faster speed, squeezing you, going in between you, going around you.
That’s just some of the most exciting racing. Every time it happens, usually I’m somewhat holding my breath until they’ve passed, but as soon as they’ve passed, I’ll often laugh and just think, I can’t believe I get to do this. I loved that car going by me that fast. That was wild.
One day maybe we’ll be in a prototype or a different class, but right now, I love being in GTD, love the grid and the competition. The level of competition that’s here I think is awesome. The other teams are all great to compete against, and yeah, I love all the prototypes out there.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
