4/8/2025
Competitive Spirit Burns Brightly for Wickens Ahead of Initial DXDT Corvette WeatherTech Championship Start
By David Phillips
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Robert Wickens is tough to satisfy. Many people would have been satisfied merely surviving that terrible IndyCar crash at Pocono International Raceway in 2018. Not Robert Wickens. Thankful? Yes. Satisfied? No. Although partially paralyzed below his chest, Wickens vowed to stand and even dance at his wedding to Karli Woods. And after more than a year of treatment and rehabilitation, in September 2019 he did just that.
But Wickens also vowed to return to motorsports competition and, with the aid of a hand-controlled, mechanical braking and throttle system, he did just that at the wheel of a Bryan Herta Autosport Hyundai Elantra N TCR in 2022.
But just driving a race car was not enough for Wickens. He wanted to be competitive … and to take the next step after that, namely winning races … and the next step after that, namely returning to championship-winning form. All of which he did, scoring four wins in the Touring Car (TCR) class over a three-year run and capturing the 2023 IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge TCR title.
But Robert Wickens had still loftier goals. Namely, competing at the very pinnacle of the sport. He recently took the next step toward achieving that goal at Sebring International Raceway, testing the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette Z06 GT3.R equipped with Bosch Motorsports’ new electronic braking and throttle control system (EBS) in preparation for his debut in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach on April 11-12. Provided he takes the green flag, it will mark his first WeatherTech Championship start since the 2017 Rolex 24 At Daytona in an open-top Prototype Challenge (PC) class entry.
“My goal from the outset of this was to get back to the highest levels of motorsport again,” Wickens says. “I’ve always seen that the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is the highest level of sports car racing here in North America. Aligning myself with someone like General Motors and DXDT Racing, it was just the perfect fit. It would be a dream if I could call it a 10-year career here in the IMSA WeatherTech series racing against the best drivers in the world in one of the best series in the world.”
Long Beach is the first in a five-race schedule on tap for Wickens this season, one that sees him focusing on WeatherTech Championship sprint races at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, Road America and VIRginia International Raceway in addition to Long Beach.
While enormously excited at the prospects, as you might imagine, Wickens won’t be satisfied “just” to race at Long Beach. He wants to use success in sprint races to springboard to a full-time entry.
“I think this is a big step,” he says. “For me to officially get that fulfillment, I want to be a full-time contender in the WeatherTech series. Honestly taking the green flag in Long Beach is going to be a tremendous step forward in my career and my journey back to the highest levels. Basically, you could say, ‘We did it. We’re racing against the best cars and the best drivers in the whole sports car industry.’
“My goal is always to get to the highest levels and I feel like I’m here. So the next step becomes a week-in, week-out staple of the series and make sure I can get myself to a full-time position for 2026 and then start fighting for championships. Hopefully we can challenge for race wins and podiums here this year.”
As Wickens’ competitors and Long Beach co-driver Tommy Milner can attest, podium finishes, let alone race wins, are hard to come by in GTD competition. Given that the two-day run at Sebring is Wickens’ only scheduled testing in the DXDT Corvette this year, there are no guarantees he will have the satisfaction of a top-three finish in 2025, let alone a victory.
“I’ll bet you a win is going to be (Robert’s) goal (at Long Beach),” says Milner, the Corvette Racing factory ace and four-time Long Beach class winner who’s available because the GTD PRO class isn’t racing this event. “And I certainly think that’s possible. The Corvette has been fast at Long Beach (but) I also think the weekend goals-wise will be to help set himself up and the team up for a successful rest of the season as well. It’s not a checkers or wreckers kind of thing. It’s definitely going to be about getting the best result that we can, but I’m certainly not counting on a win.”
From the sounds of it, neither is Wickens.“My goal is always to get to the highest levels and I feel like I’m here. So the next step becomes a week-in, week-out staple of the series and make sure I can get myself to a full-time position for 2026 and then start fighting for championships. Hopefully we can challenge for race wins and podiums here this year.”
As Wickens’ competitors and Long Beach co-driver Tommy Milner can attest, podium finishes, let alone race wins, are hard to come by in GTD competition. Given that the two-day run at Sebring is Wickens’ only scheduled testing in the DXDT Corvette this year, there are no guarantees he will have the satisfaction of a top-three finish in 2025, let alone a victory.
“I’ll bet you a win is going to be (Robert’s) goal (at Long Beach),” says Milner, the Corvette Racing factory ace and four-time Long Beach class winner who’s available because the GTD PRO class isn’t racing this event. “And I certainly think that’s possible. The Corvette has been fast at Long Beach (but) I also think the weekend goals-wise will be to help set himself up and the team up for a successful rest of the season as well. It’s not a checkers or wreckers kind of thing. It’s definitely going to be about getting the best result that we can, but I’m certainly not counting on a win.”
From the sounds of it, neither is Wickens.
“Getting acclimated into the car was kind of Job One,” Wickens says of the Sebring test. “Honestly, Bosch did so much preparation ahead of this that there wasn’t a lot. The first run with the system … if that was all I had and there was no ‘tunability’ I wouldn’t have been upset about it. We started off in such a great window where I just kind of got to figure out the car.
“I got my first taste of a long run on double-stinted tires to see what the car behaves like. This is my only test for the whole year and we want to make sure that I have as many tools in my belt as possible so there’s no surprises when we get to Long Beach or further down the road. The best thing about Sebring is a lot of these apex and exit kerbs are not super friendly. So you can treat them like walls. So in terms of getting used to Long Beach, that’s been good.”
Although Wickens won’t have the luxury of any additional on-track testing prior to Long Beach, he will doubtless log plenty of laps around the 1.968-mile street circuit on his home race simulation set-up.
“Racing on my home simulator is not only fun, but it made my dexterity and kind of my resolution of my hand for throttle application in particular just stronger and stronger,” he says. “After driving the Corvette Z06, I feel like the next step for me is actually to start doing more throttle application with my right hand just to build muscle memory … My brake that I use on my home simulator is very different to what we have in the race car, but for the throttle purposes, I think it’s very helpful.”
And while two days of on-track testing and virtually unlimited time on the sim can shave tenths of a second off lap times, perhaps even more critical will be the time gained – or lost – in the driver swap on what figures to be the Long Beach race’s one and only scheduled pit stop.
While time can be gained or lost on any pit stop in any race, at 100 minutes in length, Long Beach (along with Detroit) is the shortest race on the IMSA calendar making pit stop execution more vital than ever, especially given that on-track passing opportunities generally are few and far between. Also of note, minimum drive time in the GTD class is 35 minutes, so Wickens would likely qualify and start before the driver change sequence is initiated to turn the car over to Milner.
“We’ve always talked about the driver change being a pretty important part of the (Long Beach) race because that typically ends-up being kind of the limiting factor in the pit stop,” Milner says. “The tires and the fuel typically take a little bit less time (than a driver change). Robbie obviously comes from a place where he has the sports car racing experience, where he’s had to do those driver changes. From that side, there’s no limitations, so to speak. He knows what he needs to get out of the car.”
It’s safe to say Robert Wickens won’t be satisfied unless and until he gets everything possible – himself included – out of the DXDT Corvette.
