Ten hours of grueling day and night racing on a 2.54-mile roller coaster of a track decided everything at the 2026 Motul Petit Le Mans. With a 54-car entry spanning four categories, Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta played host to the final round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, setting up the offseason nicely before the Rolex 24 At Daytona gets the 2027 campaign rolling on January 30.
Speed is great, but consistency wins championships. The GTD PRO race winners showed exactly how it is done when Valentin Hasse Clot, Marco Sorensen, and Mattia Drudi took their striking white No. 68 Car Blanche Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo to the front with only 22 laps remaining in the final hour. Staying clean and penalty-free paid off. As Drudi noted after making his GTD PRO class debut following IMSA GTD outings at the Rolex 24 in a similar Aston Martin fielded by the Heart of Racing Team, staying close all weekend finally brought a massive win. Meanwhile, Paul Miller Racing secured the team and driver titles with Connor De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen in their No. 1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, backed by a season of strong podiums and crucial poles from Verhagen. Chevrolet clinched the GTD PRO manufacturer crown thanks to consistent runs from the Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs, even if the No. 4 pairing of Tommy Milner and Nicky Catsburg wanted more.
Resilience proved just as vital as consistency. Winward Racing overcame a brutal 300-point deficit after Watkins Glen International to charge back with three straight wins at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, Road America, and VIRginia International Raceway, eventually capturing their third straight GTD title with Russell Ward and Philip Ellis. Over in LMP2, the battle between the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR and the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA LMP2 07 came down to wire. Tom Dillmann and Jeremy Clarke of Inter Europol held a slim four-point lead coming in, but a late tangle with Alex Quinn’s No. 04 car drew a drive-through penalty for Dillmann. Quick repairs by the Algarve Pro Racing crew kept Quinn on the lead lap, allowing him to hunt down and edge Dillmann by 0.666 of a second at the line to snatch the victory and the title.
Numbers mattered across the board for the manufacturer titles. Cadillac claimed the GTP crown using three cars, while Porsche secured the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup (GTP) behind strong finishes, topped off by overall race winners Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre, and Matt Campbell driving the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963. Chevrolet repeated in GTD PRO against multi-car efforts from rivals, and Mercedes-AMG locked down the GTD manufacturer title with a crucial assist from endurance-only squad Lone Star Racing picking up strong results while Winward hit trouble at Sebring and Watkins Glen.
