Two-Time Overall Winner Back with Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing
By Holly Cain
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Having made sports cars, Formula 1, Formula E and even a pair of NASCAR starts, Kamui Kobayashi is one of the most versatile racers in the world. For the first time in three years, this great international star is excited to be back on the Rolex 24 At Daytona race grid.
The 2019 and 2020 Rolex 24 overall race winner (pictured above in 2020) once again will drive with the very team he celebrated with those years ago high atop the famed Daytona podium, Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing. This year the 38-year-old will team up in the No. 40 Cadillac V-Series.R with American, multi-time, multi-class Rolex 24 winner Jordan Taylor and Swiss racer Louis Deletraz.
As it turns out Kobayashi’s work behind the wheel in the prototype class will be especially critical with the team’s scheduled fourth driver Alex Lynn ruled out of the seat for the race due to illness. The team announced Friday just as the annual Roar Before the Rolex 24 test session started it will use only three drivers – one of three teams on the 12-car GTP grid to do so (Porsche Penske Motorsport’s two cars also will run only three drivers).
More time in the seat and the added pressure is something Kobayashi is expected to handle in stride in his hugely popular return to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the Daytona grid.
“I think Daytona is the kind of big race to start the season,” Kobayashi said. “Once you have a good race here, I think you are much better for the season. I’m passionate for the racing in Daytona.
“It’s a nice place but also quite challenging in the last part of the race every time. I always enjoy being here and if have opportunity, I always want to race (in the Rolex).”
In fact, the Japanese superstar is so passionate about the event, he even secured special permission from his longtime, full-time manufacturer Toyota to do the one-off in a different make. It will mark his fifth start in the Rolex 24 in a Cadillac.
“Wayne (Taylor) called me and offered me and I said, “Sure, I will ask my boss and my boss said, ‘yes,’” Kobayashi shared, smiling as he relayed the story of his arrival on the Daytona grid (Kobayashi may have posed that question to himself, as he is also team principal for Toyota Gazoo Racing).
This is an event that he loves, victories he cherishes and a challenge he covets.
“I always enjoy racing here,’’ said Kobayashi, who has two wins, a runner-up (2021) and fifth place showing (2022) in his four previous Rolex 24 at Daytona entries – all for Cadillac.
Taylor is particularly eager to share a cockpit with Kobayashi again having won the 2019 Rolex 24 sharing seat time with superstars including Kobayashi, Formula 1 champion Fernando Alonso and IMSA standout Renger van der Zande.
“Obviously, having Kamui back is great, he’s a multi-time winner with the team here over the years and I won with him back in 2019, so from a personal point of view, it’s nice to have him back and working with him again,” Taylor said. “Obviously he’s one of the best sports car drivers in the world, so he brings not just speed and experience but a lot of knowledge.”
Daytona marks the first of three 24-hour races Kobayashi says he will compete in this year – also including Spa and Le Mans. He is running the full FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) season plus the full Japanese Super Formula Championship series.
Known for his “all-in” driving style and the success that has produced has made Kobayashi one of the more popular competitors on the grid. His five years in Formula One (2009-12, 2014), primarily driving for Sauber, in his early and mid-20s established him as a true talent and his work inside a sports car cockpit ever since has been top-shelf – appreciated by his teams and his many fans.
Beyond his back-to-back Rolex wins, Kobayashi is a two-time WEC champion and the 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans winner. And he has led Toyota’s WEC program since 2022 earning three consecutive manufacturer’s championships.
“I want to win always,” Kobayashi said, adding that the Rolex 24 At Daytona, in particular, is a race he loves and appreciates.
“To come in here is always nice,’’ he said, “There are proper motorsports fans here in Daytona.”