Sebring, Fla. (March 19, 2022) — The No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 finished fourth in the 70th Annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Advance Auto Parts tonight. After dedicated, complimentary drives by teammates Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque and Will Stevens, the No. 10 Konica Minolta squad remains second in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship DPi standings with 665 points, having reduced the gap to the leaders down to 11 points.
Ricky Taylor started the race cleanly, avoiding drama and maintaining third position. He executed a triple stint and took second place before handing the car to teammate Will Stevens. The heat was a continued challenge as the race progressed into the afternoon hours where the No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 fell to sixth position. At the fifth hour, Filipe Albuquerque made an exciting move on the sister No. 60 Acura car and proceeded to chase down the Cadillacs ahead.
It was déjà vu at the halfway point, with Ricky Taylor at the wheel running in third position, mirroring the start of the race. With a pair of long cautions to start the second half of the race, Ricky Taylor took the No. 10 Acura to the front for the remainder of his stint. Will Stevens took another turn behind the wheel and maintained the lead into the seventh hour, but a pit lane violation after a later pit stop resulted in a drive through penalty, relegating him to the back of the field.
After another stint from Filipe Albuquerque, who handled the crucial day-to-night transition, Ricky Taylor climbed aboard for the sprint to the finish. Making qualifying lap after qualifying lap look effortless, Ricky did what he does best, clawing his way back to fourth position with 20 minutes remaining. He set his sights on the podium with the bit between his teeth. Despite a valiant effort, the team ultimately finished fourth.
“I’ve competed in the Twelve Hours of Sebring eight times,” said Ricky Taylor. “I’ve only been on the podium once. You either win, or you have a messy day. It’s so difficult, this race. You have to do every little thing right. I’m really proud of all the Konica Minolta guys and they gave us an amazing Acura all day. All the pit strategy was perfect. I can’t believe we got set back two-thirds of the way through and then, with 53 cars on track, we didn’t get a single yellow to bunch us back up. I feel like, if we could have bunched back up and had a shot to fight, we would have given it our all and perhaps put ourselves on the podium. Hats off to Ganassi. They were the class of the field today. I don’t know if we had enough for them, but we were fighting for really good points today and the car was really strong at the end when we wanted it to be. We’ve got little things to improve, but overall it’s a big positive.”
“Today we had ups and downs,” said Filipe Albuquerque. “We managed to, at one point, lead the race, but a penalty threw us a bit off. But then again, we were relaxed because there is always a yellow towards the end of the race. Yet, today was the record for the least amount of yellows at Sebring, and it was insane to go five hours without a yellow. That killed our chance to get back in the game, but the team did a great job. In the end, Ricky did an amazing job at that final push to get that position from the other Acura. That was amazing. It is what it is, but we’ll keep fighting for the rest of the championship.
“Obviously, the result, coming from where we were, seems good,” said Will Stevens. “Filipe and Ricky did a really good job at the end to bring the gap back down, but we came here to get a win and it’s disappointing to not do that. It’s a damage limitation race, for sure. We were in a good position. Some mistakes out there that cost us a lot of time, but we keep focused, we keep pushing and we’ll move on to the next one.”
“First off, thank you to Konica Minolta, HPD, Acura, Harrison Contracting and CIT for their continued support,” said Team Owner Wayne Taylor. “I’m extremely disappointed that we finished fourth because we should have won this race. There was a mistake made that was impossible to believe, but it was done. We were down a minute and thirty seconds, and Ricky ended the race 23 seconds behind. Congratulations to Cadillac 1-2-3, we knew that they had a good car. The No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 team did an outstanding job, the drivers, engineers and crew. Everything is good, but fourth is not good enough.”
Friday, April 8th will mark the start of the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach weekend with Practice 1 at 12:15 a.m. ET. Green flag for the 2-hour sprint waves at 5:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, April 9th. Full coverage can be streamed on Peacock with network coverage on USA.
ABOUT KONICA MINOLTA
Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A., Inc. is reshaping and revolutionizing the Workplace of the Future. The company guides and supports its clients’ digital transformation through its expansive office technology portfolio, including IT Services (All Covered), intelligent information management, managed print services and industrial and commercial print solutions. Konica Minolta has been included on CRN’s MSP 500 list nine times and The World Technology Awards recently named the company a finalist in the IT Software category. Konica Minolta has been recognized as the #1 Brand for Customer Loyalty in the MFP Office Copier Market by Brand Keys for fourteen consecutive years, and received Keypoint Intelligence’s BLI 2021 A3 Line of The Year Award and BLI 2021-2023 Most Color Consistent A3 Brand Award for its bizhub i-Series. Konica Minolta, Inc. has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index for nine consecutive years and has spent four years on the Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World list. Konica Minolta partners with its clients to give shape to ideas and works to bring value to our society. For more information, please visit us online and follow Konica Minolta on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter. The No. 10 Konica Minolta Acura ARX-05 effort and Wayne Taylor Racing is supported by an outstanding lineup of partners including Harrison Contracting, Acura Motorsports, Hammer Nutrition and CIT.
