IMSA: MOBIL 1 TWELVE HOURS OF SEBRING PRESENTED BY CADILLAC

March 16, 2024

Louis Deletraz

Colton Herta

Jordan Taylor

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We have two-thirds of the driving lineup of the winners of the Twelve Hours of Sebring presented by Cadillac, Colton Herta and Jordan Taylor. Team's second win here at Sebring, first since 2017. First Sebring win for the Acura brand, second for HPD/HRC.

For Jordan, this is his third win at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. He won overall in the prototype class in 2017 and GTD Pro.

This is Louis Deletraz, who just joined us.

Colton's first Sebring Twelve Hours win, third IMSA win. Yeah, we'll go with that.

Louis, since you did a little bit of the heavy lifting at the very end, talk about what it meant to bring it tomorrow.

LOUIS DELETRAZ: It meant a lot. First I want to agree, big thank you to the team, Acura, HRC, the two guys right here. Obviously without them it was not possible.

The car was really strong in the end. I knew we were in a position to win. Which to be fair was a lot of pressure. I've never really done that. Daytona was my first time. That's my second time finishing a race.

I just obviously wanted to win and bring points for the championship. I saw I had the opportunity. Seb was tough, but fair, so thanks to him. Yeah, in the end I saw the gap. I went for it, I had more pace and we won. That's fantastic. I think I'll remember this one for a long time.

THE MODERATOR: Jordan, your third win here at Sebring. First win in the GTP car. How special is this for you?

JORDAN TAYLOR: Yeah, it's a huge win for the team. I think it's their first win in the GTP class for Acura. It's a big win for the team. First time as a two-car team.

Our car, we stayed out of trouble all day. Didn't have big issues. The 10 car was extremely quick, drove to the lead at one point, but had their issue they recovered from, recovered to a top five.

Louis' closing stint is what made the difference today. The team did a good job to keep us in the fight. He really fought for that win and got it for us.

THE MODERATOR: Colton, you have a couple of Rolex 24 wins. Here is other big sports car prize. How big is this for you?

COLTON HERTA: It's awesome. I feel very were to be able to come to these races, do these endurance events which is different than what I'm used to, take a lot of different attributes that maybe I didn't have when I first started.

But it feels incredible to finally win this one. I got close in 2020 with BMW. Ended up getting taken out with five minutes to go. Ever since then, I really wanted to come back and try to win this. Luckily we were able to do that.

Can't say enough about what Louis did in the last stint to bring it home, what type of pressure he was under, able to perform through it and put on a pretty spicy move on Seb.

Yeah, I think everybody did an amazing job on the team, drivers, every aspect of it was pretty perfect from us.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Louis, did you expand more on the move with Seb? Did you think there were other opportunities on other parts of the track as well?

LOUIS DELETRAZ: Every time I got close, there was a yellow pretty much, which is not helping me. I saw I was strong on braking, especially the low speed, T7, T10. He was close, defending well on the inside. I was on the outside, he squeezed me off. I realized quickly I was never going to make it on the outside, which fair enough. It's IMSA racing, it's tough.

I thought about it, saw a gap in seven. I went for it. Bleed off the brake, try to avoid him crossing back. I think we had more contact on the straight. Again, hard racing, but I think fair. We both made it to the flag. I couldn't have done it by myself. If he didn't respect me, we'd both be in the wall. Really thankful for that.

Q. I want to ask Jordan, was there ever a point you felt like this team was out of contention for the win, or was it just a matter of staying in the ballgame, eventually this will come to you?

JORDAN TAYLOR: I don't think it was that simple. I think we knew we had a good car. I think it was a big race on track position. Kind of in the heat of the day, about survival. No one was taking any risk. No one was kind of getting in any battles that we didn't need to get into.

Once the eight-hour mark passed, that's when the race began for us to try to gain that track position back, kind of strategize from the end.

I think once we were in the top three, a little off sequence with the 01 and the 7, the race was becoming a little bit more clear. But the yellows were falling in funny places, reset where we were leading at one point, the yellow reset us to be P3. We knew Louis was going to have to fight for it because we lost the track position.

Everyone seemed to struggle a little bit to make a move on pure pace. Louis and Ricky kind of showed today, Colton had a bunch of passes, too, if you kind of time it right with some traffic, can you make some moves.

Yeah, I think the team did a good job strategizing.

Q. Louis, we've just heard your two co-drivers give you high praise. As you come into this as a full-timer, what does that mean to you?

LOUIS DELETRAZ: It means a lot. I think winning this coming here was an objective, but for sure was going to be hard work. To do it this way means really a lot.

Again, I got the car in a very good position. It's thanks to those two. Jordan and Colton didn't do any mistakes, gave me the car up there, then I could fight.

Obviously with them having won so much in their career, having them by my side, I can learn from different categories and keep improving. That's always the goal in the end.

Q. (Question about Scott Dixon.)

COLTON HERTA: I hope. He seems to win a lot of stuff in everything does. I've got a lot of respect for what he does and what he has done in the sport, probably will continue to do for a few more years unfortunately for me (smiling).

But yeah, it's just so enjoyable, so different than the INDYCAR racing. There's a lot of aspects that are very different. I enjoy it so much. I love those kind of midnight stints at the 24 hours, the 3 a.m. stints, really pushing the car when you feel like nobody's there. It's a really cool feeling.

It's just a different aspect to the INDYCAR stuff. There's so many things that cross over and there's so many things that don't. You really do become a much more well-rounded racing car driver.

JORDAN TAYLOR: I'll add on. Colton is really switched on every time he jumps in the car. He didn't come to our test. He jumped in, 15 laps, hopped into the race.

They're tricky cars to kind of jump in and understand. I'm the older guy now, compared to these two little guys. It's kind of weird for me in that aspect.

Louis is coming from a different background, different racing style than what we have in IMSA. For him, his finish of the race is a true IMSA finish that you don't get in other forms of racing. He could have proved to everyone today how well-rounded he is, and Colton as well jumping back and forth between GT cars, INDYCARs, GTP now. They both hop in and are super quick.

It's super impressive. I think we all did a good job today, but hats off to them for really getting the job done.

Q. We've seen drivers come here to Sebring and make a name for themselves. Do you feel like you did that tonight?

LOUIS DELETRAZ: I think it's not up to me to say that (smiling). I'm very happy and very proud. Again, to do it with the team that gave me an opportunity a year ago, brought me to the team as an entrance driver, gave me a chance to go full-time, gave me my first factory drive. I'm very thankful to be able to achieve that together.

Q. Jordan?

JORDAN TAYLOR: That's one of the best finishes we've seen in a long time. We've seen a lot of good finishes here. No, I think, yeah, he definitely cemented his place in Sebring history with that win. Bourdais is an unbelievably well-rounded guy. Before the race even started, the weekend started, back when we were in GRAND-AM, we used to have different sectors. Bourdais was always the guy in turn 17 that was the guy.

I remember we were watching the finish. Louis was gaining on him in the center of 17, almost had a pass out of it. He was racing against the best of the best around here and proved that he's one of them.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, guys. Congratulations.