DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.  Wayne Taylor Racings No. 10 IMSA GTP entry features a nearly identical driver lineup as it did for the 2024 Rolex 24.

The quartet of Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, Will Stevens, and Brendan Hartley are familiar with each other, but during the weekends test session at Daytona Intl Speedway the drivers had to come to grips with the Cadillac V-Series.R for the first time after driving either Acura ARX-06 or ARX-05 cars in recent years.

Amongst us as drivers, weve driven quite a few of the prototypes during this new era, said Stevens, who last raced with WTR at the 2022 Rolex 24. His full-time ride the last two years was in a Porsche 963 for Hertz Team Jota in the FIA World Endurance Championship, where he earned a win at Spa-Francorchamps.

The first few laps when you get in a car are when you feel the biggest difference, Stevens continued. Your body is used to certain feelings and certain sounds, and those initial 5-10 laps in the car are where everything is kind of a shock to the system because its all different. You have to kind of try to erase what your previous assumptions were and learn new ones. But I think once youre in the car and stop looking off a piece of paper to try and explain everything, it comes a lot quicker than just studying a driver manual.

A lot of our task is to settle down and understand how the systems of the Cadillac work and how to use them to our best advantage. Because at the end of the day, they are a driver tool. Each driver wants has certain things they want to have from a balance point of view, so its trying to fine-tune and understand what each driver wants. Simulators are very good these days, but nothing beats on-track driving.