Motorsport Media Hub

Tag: lmp2

  • 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)

  • 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.