Wickens explains what obstacles make it difficult to earn a spot in IMSA

Robert Wickens has revealed the obstacles he faced before securing a berth within the IMSA SportsCar Championship in 2025, marking the following stage of his return to racing.

The 2011 Formula Renault 3.5 champion suffered a serious spinal cord injury in a 2018 IndyCar crash at Pocono, leaving him paralyzed below the waist, but continued to race using hand controls and won the Pilot Challenge TCR title last season IMSA.

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On Monday, it was announced that in 2025, the Canadian will compete for the primary time in the best category of North American sports automotive racing, driving a DXDT Racing Corvette Z06 GT3.R within the GTD class in Long Beach. His previous IMSA appearance was in 2017, when he competed within the LMPC class on the Rolex 24 at Daytona for Starworks Motorsport.

The team moves to IMSA after ending second with Tommy Milner and Alec Udell within the GT World Challenge America partial campaign and can team up with Wickens to run a completely electronic brake-by-wire braking system developed by General Motors, Pratt Miller and Bosch.

The second driver who will partner Wickens has not yet been announced.

The 35-year-old revealed that attempting to persuade OEMs or team owners to place him in an IMSA seat and facilitate the design of a bespoke braking system “was always going to be difficult to communicate.”

#33: Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb-Agajanian, Hyundai Elantra N TCR, TCR: Robert Wickens, steering wheel, manual control

Photo: Bryan Herta Autosport

When asked if the largest barrier to entry was technology availability or teams' budgetary issues, Wickens explained: “I believe it's form of a chicken-or-egg thing because most often you possibly can't have one without the opposite. .

“Before starting cooperation with Bosch, I talked to many individuals. The technology has all the time been there, and the by-wire braking system just isn’t as modern anymore.

“Knowing that the technology exists, how it will probably be implemented and all the things else, it was all the time a frightening task.

“All the racing teams are extremely efficient in what they do, but there isn’t any excess staff that may simply be taken off an existing project and transferred to mine, which is developing a braking system that doesn't exist.

“That's where Bosch really came to my rescue when they started working with me. That whole element has been eliminated.”

Wickens said his biggest desire was “to be evaluated as a regular driver for various places in races, and if I find that job soon enough, I hope to get it,” but he found it difficult to seek out such evaluation opportunities.

“It was always difficult because I could, say, talk to you and you would be interested in giving me a test,” he said.

“Then I say, 'Well, how can we get him into the automotive, then?' and it takes many months of planning and development and all the things to even get that first likelihood.

“Honestly, the Bosch system speeds it up because many of the problem has been solved, after which it matches into the physical race automotive that we shall be driving together.

“So I’d say the largest constraint, if I needed to say one thing, is all the time the budget. I believe all the things in motorsport is a budget constraint, but luckily I even have great support behind me from DXDT, General Motors, Bosch and everybody else.”

Wickens has already raced the version of EBS he’ll use within the Corvette, but says adaptation work is underway to permit it to be configured with the automotive.

“It's really cool to see the growth because it's almost starting from scratch,” he said.

“I used to be [Corvette manufacturer] Already Pratt Miller. I saw a 3D printed concept for the rapid production of steering wheels, hand controls and tuning components.

“After all, it's truly tailor-made. This is a singular situation.

“Not many drivers can adjust the throttle, brakes and everything the way they want, unless you're in Formula 1 or something.”

#33: Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb Agajanian, Hyundai Elantra N TCR, TCR: Robert Wickens, Harry Gottsacker

Photo: Jake Galstad

Wickens said switching to a full by-wire brake path and moving away from the hydraulic element utilized in the TCR would make it easier to maneuver into other categories, and he achieved the highest GTP class in IMSA.

But while Wickens suggested he can be curious about exploring the potential for difficult for outright wins in IMSA's biggest events, he stressed he can be completely happy to be an everyday within the GT ranks and plans to extend his part-time schedule to a full-time program in 2026.

“I'll never say never, right?” – he replied.

“For me and in my lifetime, if I had a 10-year career at General Motors in GTD, I think I'd retire a happy man.”

Wickens believes he “still has some work to do” to realize comparable results to 2018 as he continues to get used to manual controls, but predicts that the return to rear-wheel drive within the Corvette after spending recent seasons in front-wheel drive wheel drive within the TCR, “will suit my driving style a little better.”

“When we get to Long Beach, my dream is that we don't have any pace deficit for anyone and that we can go out and try to get pole position, win, fastest laps and all that,” he added.