WTR’s GTD drivers on their maiden CTMP victory and what comes after
- Ghazlan Atqiya Firmansyah
- Jul 31
- 13 min read
Written by Ghazlan Atqiya Firmansyah, Edited by Aaron Carroll
The Chevrolet Grand Prix GTD-winning drivers, Danny Formal and Trent Hindman, spoke to DIVEBOMB to discuss their journey to securing Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR)’s first GTD victory at CTMP (Canadian Tire Motorsports Park).
Limiting the damage
On Saturday, WTR’s No.45 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo 2 qualified fifth on the grid, which Formal admitted was the best they could achieve considering how difficult the qualifying session was.
“First of all, [a] tough qualifying session for sure.
“We were the best Lamborghini in our category, which is fantastic. But it was just a difficult qualifying session. We were missing a little bit of outright pace; the Lamborghinis were. So yeah, fifth was the best we could do.”
During Sunday’s race, the plan was to be aggressive from the start since the race is 160 minutes long and the drivers will lose a lot of time with dirty air.
“[We’ve] had a pretty good start, [a] pretty aggressive start.
“Everyone was driving quite aggressively, only being a two-hour 40-minute race.
“Track position is really important around Mosport, being such a high-speed track. You lose a lot of time with dirty air. So yeah, I had to be aggressive too.”
Formal was fighting for third place when the No. 21 Ferrari Triarsi Competizione spun and collided with his Lamborghini in Turn 9. The Costa Rican driver believed his rival had completely missed the braking zone and could have damaged others had his Lamborghini not been around.
“We were fighting for, I believe, third place in Turn 9. And yeah, I got hit by the Ferrari.
“I watched the replay I got on IMSA's broadcast. It was pretty heartbreaking in a way [that] the guy was never gonna make the corner.
“If I weren't there, he would have T-boned someone else. He just completely missed his braking zone.”
From that point, the team had to limit their damage, and Formal kept going despite the creeping thought that bad luck struck again.
“So obviously, in my mind, our bad luck continues.
“We've had a lot of good races. We've been fast in a lot of races, and a lot of things out of our control have taken away wins or potential podiums. And that's what went through my mind.
“So yeah, at that point, obviously a lot of disappointment. I'm driving through the race, and I see cars spinning.”
The 29-year-old trusted his team completely and played his part by helping them with the strategy.
“But I knew if a team could do a crazy strategy and pull it off, it would be our team. I've seen them win many races like that.
“Sometimes the pace isn't just outright the best. But with some crazy strategy from the amazing engineers we have at Wayne Taylor Racing, they’ll pull out wins.
“[I tried] to help the team with strategy, trying to tell them, ‘maybe let's pit now before the yellow comes out.’ Luckily, they got the right choice.”
The numb feeling and giving it all
After the earlier incident, Formal felt a huge vibration on the rear-left tyre, and it was revealed that he had a damaged rim.
“As I left, I also felt a huge vibration on the rear-left tyre from the hit.
“I had a broken rim. It was pretty damaged. So it was a very difficult stint for me.”
Formal did not have track position, coupled with the vibration he endured around the high-speed corners of Mosport, made his ride uncomfortable.
“I didn't have track position.
“I was in the back of the field because of the accident. As everyone knows, all the high-speed corners are on Mosport. With that vibration, it was just not the greatest feeling.”
While the discomfort ended 15 minutes left in his stint, another problem arose afterwards: a loss of feeling in his right arm and then his right leg.
“The last 15 minutes were when I started losing a little bit of feeling in my right arm.
“Then [it] really got bad towards the last five minutes when I lost my right leg. The accelerator had a kind of numb feeling.
Formal maintained his focus by remembering his team in the background despite the conditions not to his liking.
“Obviously, not ideal, but it is what it is, right?
“I had a teammate in the background and a whole team of 20 people counting on me.
“Us as drivers and the rest of the GTD field are going to give everything to the team every time we get in the car, every time we put our helmets on and drive, we're going to give absolutely 110%.”
A miracle and another
When Formal radioed to the crew about the damage, Hindman remembered that they were not exactly sure what the damage was since it was hard to diagnose before the car came in.
“There were a couple [of] things going on there.
“Number one being, ‘hey, is the car okay?’ Danny had gotten hit pretty hard in the left rear.
“So we weren't sure what the damage was. He was reporting that there was damage, but we weren't exactly sure what it was. It was tough to see from the pit wall, and it was tough to diagnose.”
At this point, WTR was recovering its lost ground, and Hindman discovered that everything was okay, except for a problem with the wheel. Thankfully, the tyre did not dismount itself, which would have added another headache.
“Getting in the car, it was a bit of a question on whether everything was okay.
“Fortunately and unfortunately, I guess I'll say, it was just the wheel. By the grace of God, that tyre stayed on the wheel, stayed on the rim, and didn't dismount itself and create more of a headache for our day.
“So the fact that it all stayed together was kind of, I guess, in hindsight, a good sign.”
Hindman continued his charge to catch the other cars and hoped for something to happen, as Mosport is difficult for overtaking, and the GTD class is so competitive.
“We weren't far behind the field, but CTMP is a very difficult track to pass.
“We would need a lot to happen for us to move forward through the field, especially with how competitive GTD is.
“It's a group of very strong teams and drivers, and trying to pass your way forward becomes difficult.”
When Hindman got into the car, the team tweaked their strategy by removing a pit stop and trying to make it to the end with the fuel he had.
“As I got in the car, our strategy, our play, was to do what we did.
“[We] try to eliminate a pit stop off the race, cycle to the front through track position, and then make it to the end on fuel. And we got very fortunate with a late full-course caution that allowed that strategy to happen.”
Trust and faith in the calls
The team made a risky call when they decided to stay out during the full-course yellow (FCY). Hindman felt the pressure and tension of the pit wall.
But for this occasion, Hindman did not doubt the calls the team made since he had the same plan in mind and filled him in on how to make this bold call work.
“In this case, there was none of that [doubts], none of that at all.
“I was on the same page as the guys on the box. They had filled me in with what we needed to do to make it to the end, including, ‘hey, we needed a bit of luck with that full-course yellow.’
“So I think that just very open two-way communication is what settled everybody's mind, not just me in the car, but also the guys on the box.”
The 29-year-old had nothing but trust and faith in the calls the team made, considering they had all the data at their disposal to make the most informed decision.
“There was nothing but trust and faith in the calls that we were making.
“They have the foresight, they have the information, the data [is] available directly to them to make that informed decision.
“And they did, it worked out in the end. [It was] an extremely tactful race by the guys in our pit box.”
The nervousness in the pit wall
Formal and the team felt nervous watching the race unfold from the pits. He sat near Tomas, one of his engineers, who calculated the fuel, along with his general manager and three other engineers.
“I was sitting next to one of our engineers who was just doing fuel calculations, Tomas.
“I was sitting on the top of the stand with him and with our general manager, Travis, and on top of the other three engineers.
“If we were not going to make it and had to come and pit, obviously it looked like it wasn't going to happen. Luckily, it did happen.”
Formal explained that the team needed the necessary amount of fuel to make this call work. He added that the track was littered with tyre debris due to the sheer amount of G-force.
“We needed an X amount of laps under yellow to make it happen.
“The track was extremely dirty from all the pickup, being such a high-speed racetrack. Turn 8 specifically gets a lot of pickup from the tyre breaking itself as you load it with all the G-force."
Formal praised Hindman’s ability to conserve the fuel under the safety car, as the fuel continued to drop into nothingness
“Trent did an incredible job saving fuel under the safety car.
“I was watching the fuel number drop [into] nothing. He was just doing a fantastic job. Once that happened, I was like, ‘Okay, we're going to make it.’”
The reigning GTD champion, the No.57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Winward Racing, stood in the team’s way of victory. Formal hoped they would not need to go racing in the closing minutes, but left everything to Hindman’s judgement.
“We had the Windward [No].57 car; the Mercedes was the only car that could pass in the straightaway and the corners during that race.
“I knew Trent and I'd have 100% trust that he could hold them off, but it would have been a little bit more nail-biting if we had to go race the last, you know, 13, 14 minutes of that race.
“But I had trust, right? I was like, ‘I know Trent, I know how he drives. I've been racing with him now since January.’
“And I knew he would give absolutely everything to bring us that win. So I had 100% faith in him once we knew we could make it to the end with a full push.”
The Huracán had the pace to withstand the pressure from the Mercedes. Formal was so nervous at that point and helped his team with fuel calculations by using ChatGPT.
“I knew we had some pace to be able to withstand some of that pressure from the [No.]57 car.
“I even had ChatGPT out and trying to help the guys do some math on how much fuel we were burning, how much we needed to save.”
Fuel economy and a drink problem
Hindman’s final stint was particularly difficult since he had to conserve fuel, and the American driver radioed something that briefly set the team’s alarm off when it came to a drink tube.
“So the no water thing, I think, is sounding much more severe than maybe what it was.
“It was a hot day at most work. Yes. It was very warm in the car, don't get me wrong. But I knew asking the question over the radio was going to raise some eyebrows.
“And then when we were coming close to what potentially would have been our last stop before we made the final decision of, ‘hey, we're going to stay out and roll the dice.’”
The second radio sent the team to full alert, thinking that Hindman was in trouble. He assured his team that this was just a normal occurrence in motorsports and alleviated the team’s concern.
“I asked again, ‘Hey, can somebody, like, pass me a drink tube or something like that?’
“And I think the second time I asked is when I set the alarms off on the pit box, like, ‘Hmm, do we have a problem here? Are we kind of losing Trent?’
“That certainly wasn't the case from the car. It just would have been nice to have a sip of water. Things happen. It's racing. It's part of the sport. This is what we trained for, too.”
Hindman thought it was helpful to drive the car conservatively to save fuel, as it allowed him to drive in a more relaxed state and reduce physical effort
“The fuel-saving side of it actually kind of helped.
“It forces you to drive in a more relaxed state, right? You can't put so much physical effort behind every input in the car because that wastes fuel.
“So part of fuel saving is just forcing yourself to physically relax, among other techniques that we use.”
Hindman continued to explain that conserving stamina and fuel allowed the team to work toward the same goal. He then added that he actually felt better than he looked when he left the car.
“It's sort of one hand in hand.
“I needed to do a bit of energy conservation for myself, but I also had to conserve fuel in the car, and it all made us work towards the same goal pretty efficiently. So, in the end, no problem there.
“I think I looked a lot worse than probably what I felt getting out of the car, but then again, a race victory is always going to put a bit more spring in your step.”
The emotions from the victory
The No.45 car eventually crossed the line first ahead of the Winward Mercedes and the Vasser Sullivan Lexus after a two-hour and 40-minute battle.
This victory is Formal’s and WTR’s first GTD victory in IMSA and Hindman’s second. Formal said the victory is amazing, and he said Hindman screamed so hard that he lost his voice.
“We accomplished it. Our first win of the season, our first win of that programme, my first win ever, and Trent's first win since he's been back in GTD.
“It felt amazing. I haven't screamed like that in a long, long time. I haven't cried like that in a long, long time.
“My boy Trent lost his voice from screaming so loud in the car. It was awesome. It was seriously awesome.”
This win motivated the team to win more, and Formal hoped the next race would be won with outright pace, instead of strategy.
“It motivates us to want to win even more.
“You don't win every single race. Now we've got to work harder to try to show everyone that we also have the pace to win outright, not just because of strategy.
“Our next win, it's going to be on pace, hopefully, and we can just show that Wayne Taylor Racing and the No.45 Lamborghini is here to play.”
Formal said the victory is important for the programme and what the team needs halfway through the season.
“It's exactly what our programme needed.
“[This victory] is what we need halfway through the season. Now we have six more races and we have extreme motivation to keep [moving] forward, and try to bring another win to this programme."
Hindman concluded the question with how excited he was for himself, the team and the programme. His last victory came in the 2019 6 Hours of The Glen, driving Meyer Shank Racing’s Acura NSX GT3 Evo.
“Obviously, everybody's very excited.
“First win for the programme, first win for me in a long time in GTD, Danny's first ever GTD win. A lot of emotion, a lot of excitement.”
Moving forward
The No.45 Wayne Taylor Racing car now sits ninth in the GTD Teams’ Championship with 1394 points and is the leading Lamborghini team. Another Lamborghini runner, the No.78 Forte Racing, sits behind them with 1315 points.
WTR enjoyed a significant points haul from their victory, but Formal said the team did not look at the standings due to their bad luck earlier this season.
“[With] any kind of bad luck this season, we don't look at the championship points.”
“We are the best Lamborghini right now, which is fantastic. Goes miles when you're competing against other manufacturers, but you're always competing against Lamborghini too.”
“So being the lead Lamborghini is a pretty nice feeling.”
Finishing in the top five is still possible, Formal said. He and Hindman had an idea of what they were expecting moving forward, and knew the team would refuse to give up and would give everything they had until the finale
“I think a top five, top four finish to the championship is very, very viable.
“I think the top three are kind of too far away. But we'll never give up. This is the team's motto, and this is what they've done. They've won so many championships in IMSA [and] never given up.
“Going forward, Trent and I have a plan in place for what we want from the car [and] what the engineers want from us. We have a very good motivation to keep on pushing, keep on trying to find these results that this team and this programme are capable of.
“A lot of motivation going forward [with] Road America up next, one of my favourite tracks of the season. We had a lot of pace there last year. I’m excited to get going there and see what we can do.”
An hour after the race, Hindman immediately asked the question of how the team can be consistent to sustain their championship hopes, in a sport where everyone creates their own luck.
“As soon as that settled down, probably about an hour after the race, the immediate question was, ‘all right, this is great.’
“How do we make it consistent? How do we make this not just, ‘Hey, we got lucky with a good strategy call.’ You do create your own luck in this business. And we, and we certainly did that. How do we win races on pace even when we have things that maybe aren't falling our way strategically?
“So those were the questions raised over the last two weeks or so, that's been the main focus. Obviously, we want to do the best we can, but that's not, I reckon, a major concern for us right now.”
Hindman said the team is still on course for a good finish in the championship as the next tracks should play into the team’s favour. The team will take it one race at a time and stay disciplined.
“The bigger concern is how many more times throughout this year can we end up on the podium, if not the top step of the podium.
“I think we have a string of racetracks coming up that are certainly going to play in our favour and give us the opportunity to collect more results that this team very well deserves.
“Just one race at a time, one lap at a time, that's all you can do and be disciplined in the way we're doing it, which Wayne Taylor Racing certainly is.”
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