Although both Acura Team Penske ARX-05 DPI’s were forced to retire from the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring due to separate technical issues, Ricky Taylor insists there were plenty of positives to take away from the event.
The #7 car of Taylor, Helio Castroneves and Graham Rahal were the first to fall just after half distance, while the following hour saw the demise of the sister #6 car of Juan Pablo Montoya, Dane Cameron and Simon Pagenaud, with both being in contention for a strong result when the trouble hit.
Taylor admitted that had the team not been in contention for the victory when they retired would have been harder to pill to swallow, and they can head into the rest of the season with the knowledge they are a competitive outfit in the Prototype class.
“It’s really unfortunate. Our plan was really coming together,” said Taylor. “The whole Acura Team Penske group did an amazing job this weekend. We ran in the top three all day long.
“Unfortunately, this issue knocked us out. We had such a good plan going heading into the night time hours, when I think our car was really going to come to life.
“We will move past this. It’s one thing if we weren’t running up front and contending, but we were a car capable of winning this race today.”
