Wickens Not Giving Up Hope on Full Season Prospects in Future

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

Robert Wickens says he’s not giving up hope on stepping up to a full season IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship program in the future after being unable to put the funding together this year for DXDT Racing’s Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R entry.

The 37-year-old Canadian is set to again undertake a five-race sprint race portion of the season, alongside the team’s new full season driver Mason Filippi in the GTD class entry beginning with this weekend’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

“Obviously when you are racing with a customer team in sports car racing, it tends to come with a price tag to it,” said Wickens. “It’s no discredit to any of the customer teams.

“It’s just kind of the circle of life of sports car racing and I wasn’t able to put together the funds required to do a full season of IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, as heartbreaking as it was.

“I felt like I showed some results that I am not a liability and that I can do all facets of the sport.

“Doing the Nürburgring 24 last year, I think, put the stamp on that… finishing second in class.

“The Bosch electronic hand-control system was perfectly reliable throughout the entire event on one of the most grueling tracks in the world.

“So, I am very confident that if I am given the chance to do the 24 Hours at Daytona in 2027 that there are frankly, no concerns. Everything has worked flawlessly to this date so far.

“We just need to keep plugging, keep working away.

“But the main reality was I just ran out of time to find the funding to try to get where I wanted to be for 2026, which was a full season.”

Wickens said he’s hoping the second season with the Corvette will bring improved results, building on his career-best fourth place class result from Canadian Tire Motorsport Park last year.

“I am already thinking forward to ’27,” he said. “Frankly, it all starts with success, right?

“We we showed success in ’25, but kind of all at the wrong times, whether if it was a strong practice or in three or four of the five sprint races, we were in the top-three in the closing 30 minutes of the race and somehow came away empty-handed in all of them.

“The team does a great job. You can see it week in week out, whether if it’s endurance or sprint, they put themselves in position for success.

“Eventually tides will turn, and I am a strong believer that you create your own luck.

“As long as we keep pushing with the same work ethic, stuff will start going our way. Once we get the first one, everything will kind of fall into place.”

Wickens, meanwhile, returns to the site of his GTD debut this weekend, where he teamed with Corvette factory driver Tommy Milner to be a class podium contender until Milner was forced to the pits to repair a loose rear deck after contact.

“First practice, I felt like I was just drinking from a fire hose,” recalled Wickens.

“With the multi-class facet of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, I feel like I never really got a clear lap where I could really just find a rhythm.

“You’re constantly being passed by GTPs or trying to just find your way, It’s a shortened session with red flags and whatever… just life of sharing the track with 30-odd other cars.

“Having a chance to think between first practice and second practice made a world difference.

“My teammate, Tommy Milner last year at Long Beach, I leaned on him heavily on what I was doing wrong and what I needed to do differently to drive the car.

“And then in FP2, we finally just found a rhythm and I was able to find a lot of pace and ultimately go fastest in class, which kind of changed the whole expectations for the whole team ahead of quali and ahead of the weekend.

“I am pretty confident that I can start FP1 with the form I had through FP2 and qualifying into the race.

“The hardest thing about a street course is there is no room for error.

“For me in Practice 1, I thought the importance was track time so I opted to err on the side of caution. And then once you look at data, you realize where the limit was with a great teammate like Tommy last year.

“So I know what I have to do. Track evolution is incredibly high on a street course like Long Beach, so also staying on top of that’s important.

“But I think this year in Long Beach is just going to be exciting.”

Source: Sports Car 365