Kamui Kobayashi will return to Wayne Taylor Racing next year when he bids for a third victory in three starts at the Daytona 24 Hours IMSA SportsCar Championship season-opener.
The two-time World Endurance Championship title winner with Toyota was named in the #40 WTR with Andretti Cadillac V-Series.R for Daytona in January when the team announced an unchanged full-season driver line-up after its switch from Acura.
The regulars in the #40 car will be Jordan Taylor and Louis Deletraz, who came together when WTR expanded to two cars this year, while Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque will continue a partnership that dates back to 2021 in #10.
The drivers who will join the two regular pairings are all veterans of previous WTR campaigns.
Kobayashi drove WTR Cadillac Daytona Prototype international machinery before the team’s four-season stint with Acura at Daytona in 2019 and 2020, winning the race both times, with Fernando Alonso among his team-mates in the first year.
The 38-year-old, who is also team principal of the Toyota Gazoo Racing WEC squad, was unable to drive for WTR on its switch to another Japanese brand and moved to the Action Express Racing Caddy DPi-V.R run in conjunction with Hendrick Motorsports under the Ally Cadillac Racing banner in 2021 and 2022.
The line-up in the #40 V-Series.R will be completed by Cadillac regular Alex Lynn, who will race the car at the Daytona, Sebring and Petit Le Mans enduros that make up part of the five-event IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup segment of the series.
The Briton, who looks certain to continue with Cadillac in the WEC on its switch of teams from Ganassi to Jota next year, has a 100% winning record with WTR, like Kobayashi.
Lynn contested the 2017 Sebring 12 Hours with the team, winning the race aboard a Caddy DPi shared with the Taylor brothers, who are the sons of team founder Wayne.
Ricky Taylor, who is returning to Cadillac after seven seasons with Acura that began at Penske in 2018, and Albuquerque will be joined by Will Stevens for Daytona, Sebring and Petit Le Mans.
The Briton was part of the WTR Acura line-up in 2022 at Daytona and Sebring and is expected to move over to Cadillac with Jota next year after racing one of its customer Porsche 963 LMDhs in the WEC since last season.
Brendon Hartley, also a Toyota driver in the WEC, completes the line-up in #10 with a one-off at Daytona.
The New Zealander has raced for WTR since 2022 when he joined the team for the end-of-season Petit 10-hour race at Road Atlanta and this year contested three of the five IMSA enduros in one of its Acura ARX-06s.
Kobayashi described his return to WTR as a “homecoming”.
“I have such an amazing and fun memory of racing with his team and also with Cadillac Racing,” he said.
“I am really appreciative not only to WTR and Cadillac to give me another opportunity to race for them but also Morizo-san [Morizo is the racing alias of Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda] and TGR for allowing me to compete in this historic event in the United States.”
WTR boss Taylor said that Kobayashi’s abilities “speak for themselves”.
