A wild and eventful Motul Petit Le Mans brought the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season to a close at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, capped by a decisive late-race winning move and plenty of championship drama.
Laurens Vanthoor delivered the overall and Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) victory in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 after a sharp pass on former co-driver Earl Bamber, whom Vanthoor had shared a GT Le Mans class title with in 2019. Vanthoor seized the opening when Bamber was held up by a slower car, diving cleanly to the inside to secure the top step. Vanthoor shared the winning machine with Kevin Estre, who claimed his very first IMSA victory, and Matt Campbell, who enters this success as the 2025 GTP champion. While Porsche and Penske are no strangers to success at Petit Le Mans, their previous triumphs largely came in class, with the manufacturer's last overall win at the event dating back to 2015 using a GTLM specification Porsche 911 RSR.
Bamber's co-driver Jack Aitken successfully secured the WeatherTech Championship GTP drivers' title, even though a late-race incident involving the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R unfortunately blocked the team from securing their eighth podium result of the season. Stepping onto the GTP podium instead were the No. 24 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 in second and the No. 40 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac V-Series.R in third.
Over in Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), Alex Quinn, George Kurtz, and Toby Sowery drove a brilliant race to capture the class win in their No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07. That impressive performance sealed the LMP2 championship for Quinn and Kurtz.
Meanwhile, GTD PRO delivered a historic breakthrough as Car Blanche took their first victory in the category. The trio of Mattia Drudi, Valentin Hasse Clot, and Marco Sorensen guided their No. 68 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo to the win in what marked the team's first IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup start in the class. Behind them, Neil Verhagen and Connor De Phillippi finished third in the race aboard the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO, which was more than enough to lock up the GTD PRO championship.
Finally, the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class saw a dominant pole-to-win triumph from Russell Ward, Philip Ellis, and Indy Dontje. Their stellar run in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 successfully crowned Ward and Ellis with their historic third consecutive GTD title.
