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  • Laurens Vanthoor On “Overdramatized” Petit Le Mans Madness: ‘That’s what we’re here for…to win these races with everybody going all out’

    Laurens Vanthoor On “Overdramatized” Petit Le Mans Madness: ‘That’s what we’re here for…to win these races with everybody going all out’

    The 2026 IMSA WeatherTech Championship season finale concluded at Petit Le Mans, and boy was it a doozy.

    Credit to one a Reddit user in particular for labeling it ‘Petit Le Manslaugher 2026’ – a record-breaking yellow-flag count, over 15 cars officially retired and some straight-up wild crash outs such as the one provided to us by Felipe Nasr when he figured he could split the gap between the RS1 Porsche 911 and the sister car No. 6.

    He definitely could not.

    @motorsportmediahub Felipe Nasr goes for a NARROW gap between the RS1 Porsche and his teammate Laurens Vanthoor and goes AIRBORNE #imsa #wec #racing #motorsports #porsche ♬ original sound – Motorsport Media Hub

    A huge talking point amongst fans this season has been the quality and driving standards beginning in Daytona all the way through Road Atlanta. There were examples time and again of drivers making aggressive moves on the track that sometimes spilled into recklessness across all four classes and essentially every track on the 11-race calendar.

    In the Rolex 24, it was Winward Racing and Magnus Racing banging doors in the final 30 minutes of the race, something that some felt was too close to flirting with disaster; we had Parker Thompson clipping the DragonSpeed Corvette at Sebring; we had basically every lap of the Detroit street circuit; and maybe the two most inflammatory incidents of all were Nicky Catsburg wiping out the No. 64 Mustang at Watkins Glen and the calamity we saw between Kevin Estre and Jack Aitken at Road America, which saw Estre put on probation by IMSA for the final two races of the season.

    For the takedown by Catsburg on Christopher Mies at the Glen, Multimatic cleared the air on their Instagram page in a rather humorous way, declaring that the two drivers made up via an apology from Catsburg.

    Earl Bamber, another world champion that knows a thing or two about competing at the highest levels, took to Instagram after the Road America madness to voice his thoughts on what happened between his teammate in Aitken and Estre in the No. 6 Porsche 963, taking the sentiment of ‘shit happens’ when so much is on the line in an inherently dangerous sport –

    “Mistakes happen, accidents happen, it’s all part of what makes this sport so brutal and so beautiful at the same time” – Bamber

    We could go on and on, and let’s throw one more in there for good measure – the No. 27 Heart of Racing vs. Winward at VIR; a coming together that resulted in a drive through penalty for Tom Gamble.

    The debate will always rage among fans over what constitutes racing hard and tough and what crosses the line, yet we have multiple instances where the drivers actually in the middle of these battles don’t mind the fallout. Following Petit Le Mans, it was Laurens Vanthoor with a great quote and perspective regarding the aftermath of an absolute war of attrition after 10 hours of racing (also a ton of time behind the safety car).

    Vanthoor told reporters after the event that he took no issues with how the race played out, in that the world champion driver understands that when you combine a track like Road Atlanta with 50+ cars and dozens of teams and drivers fighting for championships, stuff ultimately happens.

    From Vanthoor through SportsCar365.com:

    “Honestly, I think it was a bit overdramatized by people. Go and try to drive the last two hours in the dark at Atlanta with so many cars and such a short track with championships and big victories on the line, the pressure of winning races, speed differences between professional drivers, amateur drivers, change of conditions, smoke, rain, whatever. Yes, there’s hard racing. Sometimes it goes over the line. But that’s what we’re here for, to win these races, everybody going all out.”

    Where do we settle on it? Absolutely closer to Vanthoor and Bamber’s view points rather than commenting on ‘driving standards’ for the hundredth time in the chat or on social channels. We of course don’t want to have these races remain perpetually stuck behind safety car procedures for 25+ minutes at a time.

    Howevah….

    We want the driving in IMSA to be fast and constantly flirting with disaster – that’s just the nature of the beast when it comes to the massive grid sizes we see in the series, as well as the mix of driver talent that’s present. Vanthoor makes a great point in the sense that every driver on the track knows the deal – it’s going to be intense, it’s going to be brutal and the pressure to perform and survive is what makes the dramatic moments so enthralling.

    When you have championships on the line and these cars roaring past each other at 150+ MPH, things are sometimes going to go sideways. Petit Le Mans this year was dealt an extra batch of lunacy with the spotty rain periods that popped up, as well as the lightning delay which red-flagged the event and really bogged things down.

    But Petit Le Mans turning into the chaotic spectacle that it did is more of an isolated event rather than a capstone example of the state of IMSA heading into the offseason and, soon, the 2027 season. Nobody wants to see drivers get taken out, cars demolished or championships decided by someone else’s mistake. But nobody wants to watch overly sanitized racing, either. IMSA is at its best when the drivers are pushing each other to the absolute limits — and sometimes things will spill over. It comes with the territory, and at the end of the day the drivers would rather have it that way over the other.

  • Thank the Racing Gods We Have So Much On the Line In This Year’s Finale At Petit Le Mans

    Thank the Racing Gods We Have So Much On the Line In This Year’s Finale At Petit Le Mans

    Well, we’ve finally made it to the end – the finale of the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech Championship season has (unfortunately) arrived.

    How fast can an 11-race, 9-month season go by? Plenty fast as it turns out, and we have just the 10 hour enduro of Petit Le Mans remaining before we close things down and enter the racing off-season.

    With all practice sessions and qualifying completed, there is the unfortunate reality that Jack Aitken in the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac has the GTP Drivers’ title 99.9% wrapped up following the qualifying results from Friday afternoon.

    Aitken put the Cadillac fourth on the starting grid, while Laurin Heinrich finished seventh in the order, just two-tenths of a second behind. The points awarded from the session left a 151-point gap between the two drivers, and once the No. 31 takes the green flag just after noon, the minimum number of points that can be won in the race for all 11 GTP entries is 200; even if Cadillac finished last, Heinrich cannot close the gap.

    So although the top prize in the series has essentially already been clinched before the race even begins, we’ll still have literally every other championship on the line in the other three classes, nevermind the results of the Michelin Endurance Cup battles as well.

    The gap for LMP2 between the No. 43 Inter Europol and No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing By APR is four points. Four!

    Behind those top two are the No. 22 United Autosports with Dan Goldburg P3 in the standings solo, while even the No. 99 AO Racing duo of PJ Hyett and Dane Cameron have a real shot in their own right, sitting just 108 points back and looking to go back-to-back in the class.”

    The madness is highlighted in the GT ranks, as the title races have been thin for the entire season, especially in these last few rounds. No one team was able to completely pull away from the rest of the closest competitors, setting up a scenario where six teams are still mathematically eligible to pull off the championship victory.

    The No. 4 Pratt Miller Corvette of Nicky Catsburg and Tommy Milner will take the points lead into the day (2729) while starting third on the grid, while the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW of Connor De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen will start from pole and 47 points behind the No. 4.

    Can Paul Miller Racing end their season the way it began?

    Behind them in the standings is the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Temerario, and in what will be Pfaff’s last race as an IMSA outfit, Andrea Caldarelli qualified the car 8th in class.

    Next up are the two Ford Racing Mustangs with the No. 65 of Christopher Mies and Frédéric Vervisch leading just barely ahead of the sister car No. 64 of Dennis Olsen and Ben Barker.

    Lastly – the No. 77 Skeleton Rexy of Harry King and Nick Tandy will go into the 10 hours of madness with the longest odds heading into the race, but racing is a funny sport and anything can happen, just as long as you’re putting yourself in the right spot to take advantage of the breaks that may come your way.

    GTD will come down to either Winward Racing, Turner Motorsports or The Heart of Racing. Philip Ellis and Russell Ward are shooting for their three-peat, while Turner is aiming to end a title drought that spans a decade-plus in the top series.

    Dudu Barrichello in the No. 27 Aston Martin will have his say in the discussion as well. However, for him and other cars starting the day lower in the standings, finishing as high in the running order as possible isn’t the only thing they’ll need to become champions. They’ll also need the teams ahead of them to falter and finish lower in the running order by the time the checkered flag waves.

    With so much still on the line and all of these teams mired in seriously tight fights, it’s going to be straight up bananas as the championship standings update in real time as cars rise and fall through the order. Every lap that turns and every overtake that goes down will continuously reshuffle the standings and it’ll be amazing to see the drama play out across the day and into the nighttime hours.

    Of course, if you work or root for Team XYZ and will be directly involved in these battles throughout the 10 hours, it will absolutely not be fun for essentially most of the day as the pressure and anguish builds with each successive hour that comes off the clock.

    It’s the biggest cliché in sports, but it holds true no matter what: don’t make stupid mistakes. Avoid the drive-through penalties, don’t have too many guys over the wall working on the car, and definitely don’t speed coming down pit lane. The margins will be so tight you won’t be able to slide a flash card through them, and no car or driver wants to be the one that sees an IMSA championship slip away because of something so minuscule yet damning.

    We say that, of course, knowing those errors will absolutely still happen because that’s just how it goes in the racing game. Just don’t be one of the title contenders that sees it happen to them.

    It’s not every year that we can have these kinds of battles going into the season finale with so much on the line and so many top-tier teams in the hunt. So, thank the Racing Gods for the absolute treat that Petit Le Mans will prove to be, no matter how it plays out by the time 10:00 PM arrives.

    Peace out 2026, it’s been real
  • Winward Racing Confirm Return To GTD Ranks In 2027

    Winward Racing Confirm Return To GTD Ranks In 2027

    The second team to confirm its 2027 plans for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is none other than Winward Racing in GTD.

    Both Philip Ellis and Russell Ward will be back in the fold for the No. 57, with next season’s venture marking the sixth straight season the duo will have competed together in the WeatherTech Championship.

    WWR becomes the second team in IMSA to submit its battle plans for next season, joining Car Blanche in GTD Pro.

    IMSA and Winward announced the confirmation of their plans Wednesday across their social channels.

    The two-time defending champions in the class are primed to pull off a historic three-peat, with just the season finale at Petit Le Mans remaining next week.

    A four-race stretch since Watkins Glen has produced three straight wins and a recent P2 finish at the Battle on the Bricks at Indy. With Turner Motorsports’ victory at Indy, the GTD standings remain incredibly tight, with Winward entering the weekend in first place (2,373 points). However, they sit just six points ahead of the Turner duo of Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher (2,367).

    Duddo Barrichello and the No. 27 Heart of Racing entry are not far behind, currently sitting P3 in the standings with 2,317 points.

    With Winward’s dominance in the class over the last three seasons, there have been discussions among fans about whether the team should consider — or be moved into — the GTD Pro ranks.

    Since Ellis and Ward began racing together full-time starting in 2022, the No. 57 has accumulated 14 race wins, 20 total podium finishes and two Drivers’ championships, with a third-straight potentially yet to be won.

    With this confirmation, that discussion can be put to bed for now.

  • Team RLL Back With McLaren For 2027, Eyeing Expanded GT Effort By 2028

    Team RLL Back With McLaren For 2027, Eyeing Expanded GT Effort By 2028

    Through the maze of uncertainty that some teams are going through before this offseason arrives, we have confirmation from at least one team on the GTD Pro grid that will be sticking around for 2027 and beyond.

    Speaking to DailySportsCar.com before the Battle on the Bricks this weekend, Team RLL VP of IMSA Operations Ricardo Nault laid out the Indiana-based team’s current ambitions for its IMSA future, confirming that they’ll be back with their McLaren 720S Evo GT3 for 2027, while they have aspirations of expanding their operation in 2028.

    With the next iteration of McLaren’s GT3 machine expected to be developed in time for a competitive debut in 2028, Team RLL are keen on being the team that brings that car to the grid.

    Nault confirmed that Team RLL will have a single-car entry in next season’s Pro field, while adding that an expanded two-car effort is in the plans once the new GT3 machine ultimately arrives.

    Not only that, the team isn’t giving up hopes of potentially being selected to run the McLaren MCL-HY should McLaren choose to bring the car to the States in 2028 at the earliest.

    As Nault put it, Team RLL are keen on representing in the highest levels of endurance and sportscar racing, and if presented the opportunity they would jump at the chance to take on the MCL-HY in North America.

    With the already-confirmed departures of Pfaff Motorsports and DragonSpeed from the GT side, along with the unconfirmed-yet-still-likely departure of Paul Miller Racing looming, and Acura taking their ARX-06 and going home, there has been a real downturn in the vibes heading into next season.

    RLL was certainly one of those teams that hasn’t had it easy recently, having been punted from the BMW M Hybrid V8 GTP program after three seasons and switching brands from BMW to McLaren after a decade-plus-long relationship with the German manufacturer.

    After losing out on a litany of BMW factory talent and shifting to the 720S GT3 Evo, RLL opted to put together what is easily the youngest driver pairing on the entire WeatherTech grid, with 23-year-old Max Esterson and 18-year-old Nikita Johnson.

    The idea behind the move was intentional, as RLL essentially reset their program top-to-bottom and wanted to begin again with younger, moldable driver talent while also keeping a pipeline relation to their IndyCar endeavors.

    Their workings could prove to pay dividends in the future as Johnson just recently wrapped up the Indy NXT championship, and the pair have competed together in each race thus far in the 2026 IMSA season.

    Battling against some of the most experienced GT drivers on any grid in the world, Esterson and Johnson have held their own against the likes of AO Racing, Ford Racing, and the Pratt Miller Corvettes. With two races to go, the No. 59 currently sits ninth in the Pro standings, making them the last-place team among all full-season entries to this point.

    Their best finish thus far in the campaign was a P6 result at Mosport.

  • IMSA Battle on the Bricks – Title Fights As Close As They Could Be

    IMSA Battle on the Bricks – Title Fights As Close As They Could Be

    The penultimate round of the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech Championship season goes down this weekend at the Battle on the Bricks on the Indy road course.

    In what is a major win for race fans this season, and at least again for 2027, IMSA took the route of moving this round from a six-hour endurance race back to a 2:40 sprint, giving the enduro time instead to Road America.

    The opinions on the Indy road course vary wildly across the fanosphere, with many straight-up disliking the track layout altogether. There’s always been this sort of bizarre love-hate relationship with Indy, where the teams and drivers claim to absolutely love racing at such a historic location, while fans straight-up cannot stand the relatively simple sports car track design.

    The event also suffers from the optics of seeing the stands empty across the venue, but that would still be the case even if 75K fans packed the building on race day because of just how massive IMS truly is.

    We fall somewhere in the middle of the conversation. Indy remains on the schedule consistently due to the racing heritage it carries, but also because of the business relationship and status that ol’ Roger P. flexes to have a headline event at his venue.

    We’re not saying it’s bad one way or the other; it is what it is when it comes to racing and the business side of the sport. However, that compromise of moving the race back to a 2:40 length is the middle ground that we can settle on.

    No matter where you stand on it, we’re going to enjoy the somber fact that after the Battle on the Bricks, we have just Petit Le Mans remaining on the calendar. Seemingly out of nowhere, we’ve reached the twilight of this 2026 season — enjoy every lap remaining!

    With all that being said, let’s get into the quick race preview.

    What’s At Stake For GTP –

    The fallout from Kevin Estre vs. Jack Aitken at the end of Road America lingers going into Indy. Estre is on probation for these last two races of the season while Aitken and Whelen’s path to the Driver’s and Teams’ championships is no longer as much of a moonwalk as it was before. By suffering that retirement and an ultimate 8th place finish in class, Aitken’s lead is now just 118 points over Laurin Heinrich in the Drivers’ fight, while the No. 31 is a bit farther ahead – 185 points – in front of the No. 93 Meyer Shank Acura for the Teams’ championship.

    Heinrich is jumping back into the fold with Porsche Penske Motorsport in the No. 6 car, paired up with Estre funny enough, as they attempt to snatch away the Drivers’ title from underneath Aitken.

    Another DNF or some unlucky fate for the No. 31 at Indy would throw this thing even further into question with just the season finale remaining, and if we’re going for maximum drama here, the No. 6 would have to finish far ahead and clear of the No. 31 to set up a winner-take-all Petit Le Mans.

    Things got chippy at Road Atlanta (photo via Motorsport.com)

    What’s At Stake For LMP2 –

    As things currently stand, the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR entry of George Kurtz and Alex Quinn (1701) have a slim 36 point lead over the dynamic duo of Jeremy Clarke and Tim Dillmann of the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition machine (1665). Back-to-back wins for the No. 43 has served to keep pace at the top of the standings against the No. 04, who are currently carrying a three-race streak of P2 finishes.

    The No. 99 AO Racing of Dane Cameron and P.J. Hyett are also in contention to go back-to-back, as Spike currently rests in third place in the standings, 119 points behind the No. 04.

    The driver standings start to get fractured behind the current top three, with Dan Goldburg (No. 22 United Autosports, 1517 pts) and Misha Goikberg (No. 52 Bryan Herta Autosport with PR1/Mathiasen, 1413 pts) both within shouting distance of the championship fight but in need of some things breaking their way to open a legit shot of stealing championship hardware come Petit Le Mans.

    Those top three in LMP2 have been consistent all season long having won four out of five races to this point. Naturally, all three are also leaders in the Michelin Endurance Cup chase.

    What’s At Stake For GTD Pro –

    In one of the tightest title fights we’ve probably ever seen in sportscar history, the GTD Pro championship fights will go down to the wire at Road Atlanta no matter how things play out at The Brickyard. Five teams have a legitimate shot at winning the Drivers’ and Teams’ championships and are separated by a pedestrian 67 points combined: Paul Miller Racing, Pratt Miller Corvette, AO Racing, Pfaff Motorsports and Ford Racing.

    Back-to-back wins has catapulted Pfaff into the conversation, while finishes outside the podium for PMR, Pratt Miller and AO the last two times out has created a scenario where these top five teams are separated in the standings by just 67 points total.

    In one key element to highlight – the driver pairings have not been altered at any point in the season for this top grouping of Pro cars, creating a scenario where the final results of the Driver’s and Teams’ titles will match exactly assuming nothing insanely out of the realm takes place between now and October 3.

    What’s At Stake For GTD –

    Winward Racing have vaulted themselves back to the top of the leaderboard by way of three-straight GTD victories at CTMP, Road America and VIR. The two-time defending champs are aiming to pull off the historic three-peat, however Turner Motorsports, The Heart of Racing and Vasser Sullivan will all play a part in trying to knock them off the perch before it’s too late.

    The margins are not as razor thin as GTD Pro, but we still have four teams separated by just 156 points. And due to the bigger field that GTD sees in the endurance rounds, these teams will have to cover themselves here in the final sprint race of the season in a 13-car field before seeing a potentially cataclysmic scenario play out where finishing lower in the standings in a 20-car field could take you clean out of championship contention at any point during 10 hours of racing.

    The money bet would be on Winward due to their amazing consistency and the insane skill level of Philip ‘The Closer’ Ellis in particular. Turner has a long title drought that they’re carrying, and breaking through would be an amazing achievement for the longest-tenured BMW customer team on planet earth.

    (feature photo via https://www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com/events/imsa/plan-ahead)

  • Report: Cadillac Pushing To Field Same IMSA/WEC Driver Lineups In 2027

    Report: Cadillac Pushing To Field Same IMSA/WEC Driver Lineups In 2027

    As we enter what could be labeled the “second half” of this heavily modified 2026 WEC season with the Lone Star Le Mans in Austin, there is still the opportunity to look ahead to next season and forecast some of the potential changes that could be coming for teams across the grid.

    The rumors have continued to grow this weekend down at COTA, and a new report indicates that through the initiation of Cadillac Racing, both Wayne Taylor Racing and Hertz Team Jota are prepping for a reworking of their driver lineups for 2027, with the focus being a unified roster between the two teams in both IMSA and the WEC

    As Stephen Lickorish of SportsCar365.com put it pretty clearly, Cadillac’s aim for the V-Series.R is to “field the same drivers in both the WEC and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship,” which came in response to the news of Sebastian Bourdais’ coming exit from Team Jota.

    Bourdais himself confirmed the news, remarking that Cadillac’s push to unify their lineups in a ‘One Cadillac’ approach across both competitions starting next season “kind of puts me out of a job.”

    The Frenchman has been quite frank about his future in the last two weeks or so in speaking to multiple media outlets and getting it on the record that although he is set to exit the Hypercar ranks at the end of the year, he has no plans of retiring or moving on from the highest levels of sportscar racing.

    So, we know that Bourdais is already departing from the frame, and it appears that another Jota driver will be moving on as well – Alex Lynn.

    SC365.com added that in addition to Bourdais, the 32-year-old Lynn is prepared to move on from HTJ at the end of the season with a move to McLaren understood to have been agreed to in principle at this time.

    Current Peugeot driver Malthe Jakobsen is also believed to be going with Lynn to McLaren, giving the British marquee four drivers out of six needed for their debut of the MCL-HY, with the original confirmations of Mikkel Jensen and Laurens Vanthoor already previously revealed by the brand.

    A lingering neck injury and the lengthy recovery process has forced Lynn to miss what will be the first six rounds of the WEC season, with his projected return for the final two rounds at Monza and Barcelona set to come.

    Due to Lynn’s injury and the revised schedule from the conflict in the Middle East, we’ve seen Cadillac and HTJ look to the services of Louis Deletraz for the rounds at Spa and Le Mans, while Ricky Taylor is set for his Jota debut this weekend. It appears that the presence of Ricky Taylor, and for that matter Deletraz, could be more than just guest appearances.

    SC365.com reported that Taylor is “likely” to race with Jota full-time in 2027, and due to the fact that although there are some close calls with races being held on consecutive weekends next season, as far as GTP/Hypercar clashes are concerned, there is currently no race weekend in 2027 where prototypes in IMSA will race on the same weekend as any WEC round.

    If WTR and Jota were to unify their driver lineups, it would be a repeat of what BMW and Team WRT opted for in 2026 when they implemented a much more synchronized effort between their entries in both series as WRT took over the GTP program from Team RLL.

    And just like how BMW dealt with a lack of results from previous seasons, the synergized effort would come after a period of missed chances for both Wayne Taylor Racing in IMSA and Jota in the WEC, most recently the missed opportunities at Spa, Le Mans and Interlagos to bring home landmark victories due to errors suffered via driver penalties, hiccups during pit stop sequences or misjudgments on race strategy.

    Is a combined effort in the cards for Cadillac, WTR and Team Jota? (photo via Motorsport Media Hub)

    If it’s (at least) Bourdais and Lynn out and Ricky Taylor in, the next question to ask is who else will remain on the roster between the teams, and who else could see themselves dropped?

    For the Lone Star Le Mans, the No. 12 car will see Norman Nato, Will Stevens and Ricky Taylor group up, while the No. 38 will have their usual trio of Earl Bamber, Sebastian Bourdais and Jack Aitken.

    Perhaps the No. 12 car would remain the same, leaving the machinations of the No. 38 to be fully reworked considering that Action Express Racing are returning to Le Mans next season in the place of Wayne Taylor’s entry, and with Bamber and Aitken serving as the dynamic duo of the No. 31 in IMSA maybe they would pass on racing for both Cadillac teams in 2027.

    The drawback in that scenario however is seeing arguably two of the best prototype drivers going right now in Aitken and Bamber depart their driver stables to be replaced, so would the alterations be worth it at that point?

    Overall, who knows how it’ll ultimately play out, but either way it seems the ball is already rolling downhill for Cadillac to revamp their assault on both the WEC and IMSA, and for starters Bourdais and Lynn have been the casualties in their overhauling.

    (photo via GMnews.com)

  • Report: IMSA Looking Into Adding VSC/Code 60 ‘Short Yellow’ Flag Procedures

    Report: IMSA Looking Into Adding VSC/Code 60 ‘Short Yellow’ Flag Procedures

    We’d first like to start this off by giving IMSA President John Doonan and IMSA their due credit because on the whole, a lot of the decisions and progress that has been made in the WeatherTech Championship series recently have largely been home runs.

    We’re talking the decision to make Road America an endurance round, to the overall flow and handling of the fan experience at the track, to promoting and enhancing the content put out by IMSA on their social channels, highlighted by the amazing Win the Weekend series.

    With all that said, there have been some hiccups recently – the feelings and grumbles about BOP always – and a few more that have dampened the immediate future of the grid, namely the either confirmed or expected departures of certain brands and teams, and the lack of commitment from the likes of Ford, McLaren and Genesis to submitting GTP entries at this point in time (even if blame can’t fall entirely on Doonan or IMSA’s shoulders for those specific happenings).

    Enhancing the race-day experience by way of improving the oftentimes brutal yellow flag procedures is one of the last major bugaboos plaguing the flow of action for any given IMSA race. For both the fan at the venue and the fan that watches at home, when those double yellows come out, things can grind to an absolute halt and kill all the momentum of the cars battling on track, and it’s especially frustrating when the 20-minute procedure came about due to a tiny piece of carbon fiber that was detached from a bumper and is sitting in the racing line.

    In the spirit of IMSA contiuinually looking to improve their product in any way they can, there may be hope after all for all of us.

    According to a recent report from SportsCar365.com, IMSA are evaluating the implementation of a virtual safety car procedure or a ‘Code 60’ for local yellows for the WeatherTech series when potential short-period interventions arise, as was detailed by senior VP of competition Simon Hodgson.

    Per SC365.com –

    …One of the possible measures being explored is a virtual safety car, where competitors reduce speeds for short interventions, typically lasting one lap or less, which would allow for quick actions from corner workers, such as the cleanup of debris…It’s activated by the race director, with the specific timing transmitted to each car through radio and an on-board marshaling system, with cars’ speeds tracked by GPS monitors. Hodgson, however, wouldn’t confirm that any specific measure is under consideration at this time.

    We’re talking those situations exactly – some debris on the racing line, a car that spun out that’s just waiting to fire back up and get rolling again, or anything else that could be considered small enough where a full course yellow + safety car intervention can be avoided.

    SC365.com added that the new systems have already been tested by a select number of teams currently on the IMSA grid.

    If the goal here is to the action on race-day, then there is very little drawback to introducing this system—or something like it—to the WeatherTech series. Just this season IMSA implemented a short-yellow variation for the beginning of races where if a flag comes out inside the first 30 minutes of the start of a race, or within 15 minutes of a restart, pit lane stays closed.

    It’s way less painful when you’re at the track watching in person, as yellow-flag periods give you a chance to chillax, catch your breath, grab a drink, or even walk around to a new vantage point for the restart. But when you’re watching from your couch at home, it can be absolutely brutal to wait 15–20 minutes watching nothing happen as the entire 50-plus-car field goes through a wave-around process because the No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari lost a side mirror going into Turn 3 almost a half hour previous.

    IMSA, and Doonan, have claimed in the past that the delay of introducing this sort of tech to the series has been because of safety measures, namely how the AMR safety crews and track officials need to be protected during on-track cleanups. We’re not going to say that doesn’t need to be considered, but it’s maybe a bit disingenuous on IMSA’s part to make that claim when we know how much they and their parent owner NASCAR not-so-secretly love the presence of yellow flags in order to keep races tighter and – let’s be real – manufacture some more drama for instances where cars either get back on the lead lap or seeing a 40 second lead be wiped out back to a green flag restart.

    We can also understand the difficulty of installing the technology at every track on the calendar, from Daytona to Long Beach to VIR, and to be sure that it works the way it should. You also have to consider that whatever it would be – new radios, new receivers, new transmitters, XYZ – that the teams may be responsible for the upgrade costs. To Doonan’s credit, he has always been conscious of budgets and financial costs for all teams before introducing any major changes to operations.

    Either way – if IMSA can get this locked in starting as early as 2027 the overall benefits would be immense. Let’s make it happen.

  • Winward’s Three-Peat Charge Begs the Question – Is It Time To Go Pro?

    Winward’s Three-Peat Charge Begs the Question – Is It Time To Go Pro?

    Dread it. Run from it. Winward Racing arrives all the same.

    That’s how the rest of the GTD field in IMSA are probably feeling right about now after Philip Ellis and Russell Ward extended their class winning streak to three straight races with a win at the Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway.

    After only one caution flag flew the entire day, Ellis and Ward ran at the front of the field next to the Heart of Racing No. 27 and Turner Motorsports No. 96 for a large portion of the race. The decisive moment came late in the action when a borderline move from Tom Gamble on Ellis resulted in contact with the No. 57 that was deemed to be over the line by the stewards, resulting in a drive through penalty and another brutal break for Gamble and THOR.

    The trip down pit lane took Gamble out of the fight and gave Ellis all the space he needed to drive the No. 57 Mercedes-AMG home to the finish line, and controversial or not, the victory went to Winward all the same.

    With what is now their third-straight win and fourth overall on the season following their win at the Rolex 24, Ellis and Ward vaulted to the top of the standings and currently hold a 36-point lead over Turner in second place with just Indianapolis and Petit Le Mans remaining on the calendar.

    Being in first place is an all-too-familiar spot for Ellis, Ward and the Winward team as they zero in on what would be a historic championship three-peat. The tandem have been a constant together since Winward’s full-season IMSA debut came back in 2022 and have steadily built themselves into one of the most consistent performers in the entire IMSA paddock. The 33-year-old Ellis is a FIA Gold-rated driver, while Ward is currently rated as a Silver. In the time that the two have been together, the No. 57 Mercedes-AMG have won 14 races, finished on the podium 19 times and have won the Rolex 24 and 12 Hours of Sebring twice – with Ellis and Ward being together for every single one of those achievements. They’ve also claimed a Michelin Endurance Cup title in 2024.

    For obvious reasons, it’s difficult to pull off a championship three-peat in any sport, never mind one that can have as much turnover and as many shifting chairs as motorsports. Yet Ellis and Ward are in position to do just that, which would be especially rare with the same team, the same car and the same driver lineup winning three straight years in both the drivers’ and teams’ championships.

    If Winward are to pull off this feat, or even if they don’t, a question can be posed to the collective powers that be – would it finally be time for either Winward themselves or for IMSA to elevate them to the GTD Pro ranks starting next season?

    There was a recent trend of teams finding championship success in GTD getting their call-up to the Pro ranks, with Paul Miller Racing, AO Racing and Pfaff Motorsports all jumping from GTD to GTD Pro as recent examples in years past. If Winward finish out the season with more wins or just consistent results to claim that third-straight championship, would it be time to bump them up into the Pro ranks and level out the two GT fields just a bit?

    Lord knows the Pro class could use the company with the already-confirmed departure of Pfaff from the grid, while the future of Paul Miller appears sealed just not yet revealed at this time. There are reports that Wayne Taylor Racing could be in line to take over the Pro-entry Temerario, but the shoes of the BMW M4 GT3 would have to be filled, and giving the Pro class a Mercedes-AMG would certainly boost the competitive ranks.

    Typically, we aren’t big on the idea of ‘punishing’ teams for winning consistently, and some could say that ‘forcing’ a move from GTD to GTD Pro isn’t relatively fair on the surface of things. However, for the sake of the GTD class and to recognize that perhaps this one team has outgrown the pond it swims in, it could just be a perfect segue into the 2027 season to add an operation like Winward Racing into the mix. They’ve won basically everything there is to win in their current class, and Winward could certainly handle the extra responsibility of taking on that particular new challenge.

    Again, even if it’s simply for the sake of pumping up the Pro ranks next season, the move should happen for the good of the realm. Let’s see if Winward, or IMSA, are thinking the same way.

  • Report: RAFA Racing ‘evaluating future GT3 expansion’

    Report: RAFA Racing ‘evaluating future GT3 expansion’

    Of all the new cars set to hit racetracks around the world in 2027 and 2028, it’s easy to argue that the born-for-the-track Toyota GR GT3 carries more hype than any of them.

    With the Lexus RC F finally being sunset into racing history at the end of the 2026 season, Toyota have been hard at work developing the beastly tandem of its new road-going GR GT and its GT3 counterpart since their official worldwide announcement in December 2025.

    It’s been a slow trickle of news from Toyota since the car was officially revealed to the world, to the point that even today, we still have no official confirmation of which series the car will race in or who will be behind the wheel. We’ve seen guerilla footage of the car testing at the Nürburgring in recent weeks, but as far as concrete plans go, it’s still anyone’s guess who will be tapped to run the car when it hits the track in 2027.

    The current and obvious expectation is that Vasser Sullivan will continue its partnership with Lexus/Toyota and make the seamless transition from the RC F to the GR GT3 in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship, following an impressive run with the RC F dating back to 2019. But beyond Vasser Sullivan, could another team be looking to take on the challenge of bringing the GR GT3 to the grid? There appears to be at least one with its eyes on the prize: RAFA Racing.

    According to John Dagys of SportsCar365.com, team owner Rafael Martinez and team principal Kevin Conway were both on-site during the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca last week, which served as the GR GT3’s North American track debut. Vasser Sullivan’s Jack Hawksworth took the car for a few laps around Laguna Seca during the event, and according to Dagys, RAFA Racing is “understood to be evaluating a future expansion into the GT3 ranks.”

    As for what timeline constitutes “the future,” that could be 2027, 2028, or who knows. In running the Supra GT4 Evo2 in the GS class of Michelin Pilot Challenge and the GSX class of VP Racing Sportscar Challenge, it gives RAFA an inside track to continuing that partnership should Toyota look to add more teams to the fold for the rollout of the GR GT3. And if Vasser Sullivan were to continue their presence in GTD Pro, RAFA could easily slide into the GTD ranks right behind them, especially if IMSA’s manufacturer mandate comes into place for the 2027 season.

    Since merging with Conway’s previous team, Smooge Racing, RAFA Racing have built an impressive, fan-friendly, competitive, and fun brand over the past year-plus. They’re one of the fastest-growing teams in North American racing, continuing to expand their presence across multiple IMSA and SRO America support series with the Supra. The organization also fields a strong two-car effort in Lamborghini Super Trofeo, while extending its reach into the ARCA Menards Series.

    RAFA in Lamborghini Super Trofeo (photo via Motorsport Media Hub)

    Driver talent has continued to expand under their team structure, as their No. 12 Michelin Pilot Challenge entry of Varun Choksey and Kiko Porto recently secured its first victory at Mosport, while Westin Workman has utterly dominated his rookie season in VP Racing Sportscar Challenge after making the jump from Mazda MX-5 Cup. The 21-year-old opened his sportscar career with seven consecutive GSX-class wins and, with four races remaining, holds a commanding 400-point championship lead over Courtney Crone.

    RAFA Racing owner Rafael Martinez is also competing in VP Racing Sportscar Challenge, where he currently sits third in the championship standings.

    With how RAFA have continued to build their operation through these while attracting more talent to their driver stable, a move into GT3 would make plenty of sense. The GR GT3 could represent the next major step in RAFA Racing’s rise, and if Toyota are looking for a healthy one-two punch for the launch of their new machine alongside Vasser Sullivan, RAFA may have one foot in the door to making it happen.

  • The Next-Gen LMP2 Fight Is A Go – Ligier Lands Three of LMP2s Best Teams To Run the JS P228

    The Next-Gen LMP2 Fight Is A Go – Ligier Lands Three of LMP2s Best Teams To Run the JS P228

    In a major power-shifting move for the future of the LMP2 class, it was announced on Wednesday that three of the most successful teams in prototype racing today — Inter Europol Competition, Algarve Pro Racing, and Panis Racing — will all make the move from Oreca to Ligier for the launch of the new regulations ruleset in 2028.

    The duo of Ligier and Oreca are primed to be the sole providers of LMP2 hardware in the new era of the formula, and both are in continued work developing the chassis of their next generation of prototypes.

    For Ligier, the JS P228 will succeed the JS P217, while Oreca will be advancing to the Oreca 09.

    Both prototypes will make their worldwide competitive debut at the 2028 European Le Mans Series season, followed by their debut in the World Endurance Championship the same year, meaning Ligier will make it’s return to Le Mans for the first time since 2022.

    The JS P228 and Oreca 09 are set to debut in the IMSA WeatherTech series the following year in 2029, as was confirmed by IMSA president John Doonan back in June.

    The JS P228 will carry with it the ambitions of many to rebalance the competitive landscape of LMP2 after so many years of worldwide dominance in the class by the Oreca 07. For those of you that had forgotten that Ligier actually made a prototype chassis for competitive purposes, you’re definitely not alone. Both the Oreca 07 and the JS P217 launched back in 2017 to usher in the new LMP2 ruleset that is still in place to this day. Over time, due to the amazing reliability, strength of performance and overall ease of use with the Oreca 07, virtually every team competing in any of the top racing series’ in the world eventually switched over to the platform, making the Oreca 07 a dominant force and de facto choice for teams, while also leaving the JS P217 behind in the dust.

    Ligier’s last competitive victory in either the ELMS, IMSA WeatherTech Series or the World Endurance Championship came in the 2018 ELMS series at the 4 Hours of Portimao via United Autosports. Yeah, quite a while ago.

    The news of Inter Europol, APR and Panis all choosing to work with Ligier is a major shot in the arm for the future of the class, as Oreca won’t have the same sort of stranglehold it’s had in motorsport for the last half-decade, well at least at the beginning of things, at least.

    Inter Europol have rapidly blown up as one of the premier teams in all of motosports, having posted an insane four-year run at Le Mans with wins in 2023, a second place finish in 2024, and back-to-back wins in 2025 and 2026, with the most-recent triumph in ’26 also serving as a 1/2 finish along with the sister car.

    Their success has transferred over to North America and IMSA to the tune of multiple class wins, over a dozen total podium finishes, a 3rd place finish in the standings in 2025 and a championship title in 2024. They currently sit second in the LMP2 standings with two races remaining in the season, behind only the No. 4 CrowdStrike Racing by APR – yes exactly that same Algarve Pro Racing.

    Speaking of which, APR have run in tandem with CrowdStrike at different points in recent seasons, often bouncing their name combinations back and forth depending on the year and series, but long story short both APR and CrowdStrike have found success to the tune of winning the LMP2 championship in the 2023 ELMS season, and going back-to-back in the Asian Le Mans Series in 2023-24 and 2024-25.

    Panis Racing meanwhile are the reigning ELMS champions in a joint effort with VDS Racing, which again highlights just how successful these three teams have been in recent years, making their commitment to Ligier all the more noteworthy.

    On the other side of the coin, United Autosports and Duqueine Team have already been tabbed as the first customers of the new Oreca 09, and as we move on through the next months it’ll be great to see where the remaining teams opt to lay their allegiances by the time 2028 comes aorund.

    As for the delay in getting the new prototypes to North America, IMSA President John Doonan explained the decision as a way to provide teams with additional runway ahead of the change, allowing the new cars more time to go through R&D in competition around the world before they are brought in to IMSA. For teams already facing the substantial costs associated with developing and purchasing new machinery, that extra year could prove valuable as the LMP2 enters its most significant change in more than a decade.

    For the teams that also compete in IMSA – the aforementioned group of CrowdStrike Racing by APR, Inter Europol and United Autosports – the easy guess today is to assume that those teams will run their new prototype choices come 2029. Ideally that plays out exactly as we should expect while we avoid any potential cost-cutting measures for them maybe opting to focus on the European or Asian LM series first before taking on more and more.

  • Facing An Uncertain Future, Paul Miller Racing Fighting For Championship Success

    Facing An Uncertain Future, Paul Miller Racing Fighting For Championship Success

    There is an unwritten contract that exists between someone and their pet, be it a dog, a cat or otherwise, that is essentially a mutual understanding that through all of the good times and bad, and all of the love and time spent together, there is an expiration date at the end of the road. It’s a rule of nature, the cycle of life, and it comes for us all in every human/pet relationship on this planet earth (unless you’re Tom Brady and somehow manage to clone your pit bull).

    The same principle applies for race teams that live in the topsy-turvy, always-volatile landscape of professional motorsports. No matter how great things can get or how much success can come to one organization, there is the inevitable fate that the good times will not last forever, and that eventually every team can see their own time come to an end. You absolutely can’t ever take anything for granted; Hell if Brumos Racing can see their operation fold, then absolutely no one is above the potential of seeing theirs come too.

    Just a few weeks ago after Road America, we saw one of the most popular teams in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship, Pfaff Motorsports, announce that they were departing the IMSA grid at the end of this season. According to reports during that same weekend, another mainstay of the IMSA GT scene is facing an uncertain future – Paul MIller Racing.

    John Dagy’s from Sportscar365.com reported that PMR is facing an increasingly uncertain future regarding its plans for the 2027 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season. Speaking with team principal Mitchell Simmons, Simmons revealed that the team currently does have a contract secured for operating next season, adding that although the desire is there to remain in the WeatherTech series, where and how it would look remains firmly up in the air with a substantial lack of clarity. Due to cost factors, and possibly a little bit of resentment towards the Balance of Performance process, Paul Miller Racing is facing the reality of exiting the top level of sports car racing in North America after the end of this season.

    PMR have been a mainstay since the American Le Mans days dating back to 2011. They established themselves a long time ago as one of the most consistent and respected organizations by winning essentially everything there is to win when it comes to competing in IMSA. We’re talking two Rolex 24 victories, two wins at the Sebring 12 Hour, two wins at Petit Le Mans, and over 50-combined podium finishes. They’re back-to-back Michelin Endurance Cup champions and are in great shape to pull off the three-peat with just Petit Le Mans remaining. All of that without mentioning their GTD class championships in 2018 with Lamborghini and the utterly dominate season that Byran Sellers and Madison Snow put together in 2023 with five race wins and the Pro title with BMW.

    The team again finds itself fighting at the front of the championship battle in the Pro class this season. Following their victory at the Rolex 24, Connor De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen have delivered another steady, consistent campaign of performance with three total podiums, putting them in first place going into VIR this weekend. In a highlight of just how close things currently are, their lead is just 15 points over the No. 4 Pratt Miller Corvette of Nicky Catsburg/Tommy Milner, and 21 points ahead of Nick Tandy/Harry King in AO Racing’s Rexy.

    With VIR being a GT-exclusive event, it’ll serve as a pivotal marker in determining the direction of the title battle. It was last season at VIR that the No. 3 Corvette of Alexander Sims and Antonio Garcia finally found their breakthrough victory that ultimately put enough breathing room between them and Albert Costa in the DragonSpeed Ferrari. It’s also what makes the situation surrounding Paul Miller Racing so interesting, and fairly bittersweet. While questions remain about their future, the team has the opportunity to cap off another stellar chapter in their IMSA tenure with one of the biggest prizes the series has to offer.

    If PMR were to depart the scene, a tied-in question of what would happen to the BMW M4 GT3 in the Pro class comes right after. You have to believe that if the opportunity opens up that there would be a massive amount of interest from other teams looking to fill the BMW shoes in the class.

    An easy answer to that question would be Team WRT, which already runs the pair of M Hybrid V8s in GTP. However, WRT’s decision to skip the fourth round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge season at Suzuka does raise some questions about just how much the organization is willing to take on with so much already on their plate. They’re balancing a two-pronged effort in the World Endurance Championship campaign with four cars total in Hypercar and LMGT3, along with factory efforts in GT World Challenge Europe. Adding a GTD Pro operation to that workload is certainly not impossible, but it would require a significant amount of effort, commitment, and financial backing to make it happen. The decision to skip Suzuka shows that WRT are being mindful of its resources and workload, and bringing on another full-time IMSA program would be a substantial undertaking, even for an organization with the experience and infrastructure of WRT.

    Could W Racing Team take on even more in 2027?

    Before we get to that, there is still the end of the IMSA season to get through first, and your guess is as good as ours as to who will ultimately come out on top. Last year, it was No. 3 Corvette taking home the championship, and the year before that it was AO Racing. Go figure, both of those teams are right back in the fight once again, albeit this time the Corvette sister car No. 4 is the one in line for hardware.

    For Paul Miller Racing, though, there is potentially even more at stake. A championship could serve as a fitting career capstone to what has been another remarkably consistent season for the team, or it could serve as a jolt of energy to reverse course and secure some additional funding or buy-in from BMW or another brand that could see them extend their stay in the series. Before Lamborghini and BMW, the team entered onto the scene with Audi and the No. 48 R8 LMS ultra, finishing second and third in the standings in their two seasons with the car.

    For now, Paul Miller Racing is still on the grid and they’re in the captain’s seat for the championship fight. With just three races remaining to decide how it all goes down we’re going to remember the mutual understanding that exists between us fans and our favorite race teams; we’re gonna live presently in the good times and we’re going to appreciate the war of attrition to come and which will culminate at Petit Le Mans in early October. Buckle up buckaroos.

  • YRB Racing Jump Back To GTD Pro for VIR, Draft In Marco Sørensen

    YRB Racing Jump Back To GTD Pro for VIR, Draft In Marco Sørensen

    If you’re trying to keep up with the whiplash of how YRB Racing is navigating its first few months of existence, don’t worry — you’re definitely not alone.

    We’re set for another round of it with ‘Car Blanche’ at next week’s GT-exclusive event at VIR, as it was confirmed through IMSA’s release of the entry list for the upcoming sprint round that YRB is set to return to the GTD Pro ranks for the second time this season.

    Even more notable than that is the fact that Valentin Hasse-Clot will be paired with yet another teammate through this whirlwind of a season, and that teammate happens to be fellow Aston Martin factory talent and current Heart of Racing Hypercar driver Marco Sørensen.

    Just over a week ago at the Motul Sportscar Endurance Grand Prix, the trio of Hasse-Clot, Trenton Estep and Marius Fossard claimed their second podium finish in as many tries as a grouping, repeating their P3 effort from the Glen with another P3 finish in the GTD class at Road America.

    In the previous race at Mosport, YRB had announced a move up to the GTD Pro class, with Hasse-Clot being joined by Scott Andrews for the event. The duo fared less favorably, finishing last in class. After the race, both Hasse-Clot and team principal Christopher Deely expressed their views on how the rest of the season could go in terms of which class they’d continue to race in through the remainder of the 2026 season, while also looking ahead to 2027. Questions that have come of YRB’s jumping back and forth between classes revolved around their driver lineup, with Hasse-Clot serving as a Gold-rated talent, whereas Estep and Fossard are both currently Silver-rated. Andrews filled the spot for the race at Mosport, and now we have our answer for their plans at VIR with Sørensen flying in to take a spin behind the wheel.

    For Sørensen, VIR will mark his first time back in IMSA’s GTD Pro raks since the 2025 Rolex 24 when he served as the fourth man in for The Heart of Racing. Later in the year Sørensen also took a ride with Magnus Racing at Watkins Glen, while his lone venture in IMSA competition this season came at the Rolex 24, again with Heart of Racing and this time in the No. 23 Valkyrie.

    For YRB as an operation, the facts are starting to trickle out more and more about their sudden burst onto the scene and the financial backing that they have. At this point it’s public knowledge that a major player tied to the Aston Martin Formula 1 team is the one behind the takeover, and the understanding is that there is/has been a massive influx of cash and support to boost the team up across the board. Acquiring a driver of Sørensen’s talents is on par for how things are going with Car Blanche thus far.

    These guys certainly know how to make headlines