By the Numbers – GTP
Wins –
Porsche – Daytona, Sebring, Laguna Seca,
Petit Le Mans
Acura – Long Beach
Cadillac
– Detroit, Watkins Glen, Road Ameirca
BMW –
Indianapolis
Champion – Jack Aitken, Whelen Engineering Cadillac,
Cadillac
MEC Champions – Felipe Nasr, Julian Andlauer, and Laurin
Heinrich, Porsche Penske Motorsport, Porsche
Qualifying –
Poles –
Renger van der Zande (Daytona), Jack Aitken (Sebring & Watkins Glen), Nick
Yelloly (Long Beach & Road America), Louis Deletraz (Laguna Seca), Earl
Bamber (Detroit), Tom Blomqvist (Indy & Petit Le Mans)
Team by Team
Porsche Penske Motorsport – Porsche – 6 (Estre &
Vanthoor, L.) 7 (Nasr & Andlauer)
The same
line that started last year’s analysis of this team applies eerily once again:
the year started off pretty close to perfectly for PPM. The win for the 7 crew
to start the year at Daytona was bolstered by the team’s 1-2 at Sebring, which had
a bit of controversy, let’s not forget. Nasr and Estre wheel banging for the
win must’ve given more than a few people in the Penske box terrified flashbacks
of 2023 when both cars wrecked in the dying moments of the race. We never
would’ve imagined the dominant 7 would not see the podium again all year, that Heinrich
would out-perform the Penske Porsche in an older spec model with an underdog team,
or that Kevin Estre would finish further ahead in the championship than the
Daytona/Sebring winners. Still, offer any driver a Rolex and Sebring win and a “meh”
season to follow, 9 out of 10 drivers would take it and the one hold out would
be lying.
When it
was announced that Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor were teaming up for a full
year effort in GTP, a LOT of people were excited to see the World Endurance
Champions come try to tackle IMSA, yours truly included. They did make a big bang…literally.
The first 7 races featured cars from the 6 crew with damage in one form or
another. There is one thing we need to acknowledge: IMSA is war. Never let your
guard down, always have elbows out, contact is everywhere with everyone. It
doesn’t have to be that way, but in recent years, it has been. Their car, for
some reason, always had more battle scars than the others. Only the one DNF at
Road America, the win at Petit (finally in Kevin’s 32nd start), the
2nd at Sebring, and further podiums at Long Beach and Indy, they had
a fairly average season.
Looking
at the numbers, Porsche Penske Motorsports was only fast in the races it won.
Fastest Lap for Campbell at Daytona and Nasr at Sebring and only 8 laps inside
the top 5 (half of those from Sebring as well) all year showed the pace wasn’t
there for the cars for most of the season. Andlauer was the fastest of the
group three times, Estre twice, and every other driver once. How did they stack
up generally? Heinrich was the strongest across all 3 categories, 4th
best for Pace and Position, and 5th for Time off Co-Driver (aided by
sharing the car with drivers in the JDC Car, but more on that later). Estre was
just behind Aitken on Position and Pace, and was the next best Porsche driver
for time off co-drivers, but was 9th best from the full season
drivers on this point. He was significantly ahead of Larry though, who’s
Position was middle and Pace was towards the bottom of the full season runners.
For time off co-drivers, I was very surprised to see Vanthoor as the 4th
worst of the full season runners. Nasr wasn’t much better, however. He was the
worst of the PPM drivers for Position, and he and Andlauer were almost together
on Pace and time off co-drivers. I can’t actually remember the last time Nasr
has been that close to or beaten by a teammate. In qualifying, Andlauer
averaged 6.7 and Nasr and Estre both 7.2, while Vanthoor had 6.0. The pace
simply wasn’t there for PPM or their drivers.
Between
the two cars, they earned 3 wins and the Michelin Endurance Championship. But 6
podiums out of 20 potential opportunities is unacceptable for The Captain, and
everyone wearing a Penske shirt is aware that representing that prestigious
team requires better results.
Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian – Acura – 60 (Braun
& Blomqvist) 93 (van der Zande & Yelloly)
Although
one team, these two cars had dramatically different seasons. The 93 started
things off well with the pole at Daytona, and a win and pole at Long Beach for
the Acura Grand Prix. Whereas I was lamenting the trials of PPM’s season, MSR
had only 2 podiums all year, both thanks to the 93. As a team, they had big
DNFs at Watkins, Road America and Petit, and very average finishes in most
races. Still, the 93 managed to finish 3rd in the championship with
an average finish of 4.9. The sister car averaged 6.8. Here, we should take a
second to acknowledge the 60. It was the only full season GTP car to not get a
single podium, and in every other GTP scored at least 2 podiums. That’s not to
say the 60 was slow. Blomqvist averaged 2.9 in qualifying, which would’ve been
the best had Yelloly not been a factor, and between the two cars they scored 5
pole positions. Nick showed up and set the class alight with a shocking 2.5
average, although Renger did do 3 sessions for his own average of 4.7 while
Blomqvist did every qualifying for the year. Still, this shows the speed was
with Acura, maybe just not the luck.
On race
days, they had pace too. Blomqvist was a superstar again, setting the best
average Position (5.8) and Pace (0.4) for the field, and was only beaten by
Deletraz as far as time off co-drivers for full season contenders. Yelloly was
right with him on the charts but further behind by the numbers. Nick’s Position
(8.1) and Pace (0.488) were close, but the time to co-driver was almost a tenth
slower and was in fact 10th of the full season drivers. Renger had a
silently strong year, overshadowed by the strength of the two already
mentioned. Renger’s Position and Pace were 9th best, and his pace to
co-drivers was less than half a second off, but for this year that gap was
quite big. Braun was the outlier of the group. His Position was 16th,
Pace was 18th, and he was the second slowest of all drivers for time
off co-driver. He, Dixon and Allmendinger were the only drivers not to set the
fastest lap within the team for a race.
With
Acura’s departure from sportscar racing, I do just want to give a brief round
of applause for what they accomplished. In their 82 races in the top class of
IMSA, they took 37 poles, or 45% of the time. 9 drivers took pole for the brand,
and each of those 9 got multiple poles for the manufacturer. They won at every venue on the calendar
except Indy, taking 25 wins total. What they accomplished in their time is
remarkable, and deserves a round of applause from race fans everywhere.
BMW M Team RLL – BMW – 24 (D. Vanthoor & van der Linde)
25 (Eng & Wittmann)
2026 saw
a change up in the driver line up for WRT, albeit simply a switch of drivers in
cars. Pairing Vanthoor and SvdL was a masterstroke, albeit one that resulted in
shockingly only one victory. The 24 had 3 podiums and the 25 got two trophies,
with each car failing to finish just one race each over the year. The biggest
surprise was 0 poles for either car. Dries started 2025 with 4 consecutive pole
positions but averaged 5.4 in qualifying for 2026, worse than his teammate
Sheldon who averaged 4.8. Wittman’s qualifying average was 7.5, and Eng
languished at 10. They started on the
front row only once all year.
Race day
numbers show the 24’s superiority. Vanthoor and SvdL were together on Position
and Pace, and were only split by the Heart of Racing drivers as far as
co-drivers pace is concerned. They were much further up the chart than the
sister car. Wittmann was ahead of Eng, but not by much for Position. They were
also near Heart of Racing, but towards the bottom of the chart. For Pace,
Wittmann was solidly in the middle, between Ricky Taylor and Fred Vesti, and in
the bottom third of average co-driver, with Eng in the bottom 3 for full season
for both of the remaining categories. Within the team, Eng was never fastest,
Wittmann taking the honor once, SvdL 3 times including Fastest Lap of Road
America, and Vanthoor 4 times.
The biggest thing I see in their
performance for 2026 is that BMW finished in the bottom half of the field (6th
or worse) in 10 out of 18 performances. Yes, they won Indy. But much like
Penske and Shank before, Vincent Vosse’s organization will look at 2026’s
championship results, 6th for the 24 and 13th for the 25,
as ones to not be particularly proud of and with an urgency for need of change.
Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing
- 10 (Albuquerque & Ricky) 40 (Deletraz and Jordan)
Last year
I talked about how it was a difficult year for Wayne Taylor Racing, earning
only 4 podiums between the two cars, no wins and no poles, finishing 6th
(10) and 10th (40) in the championship. In 2026, they earned 4
podiums between the two cars, and added a win (Road America, 10) and a pole
(Laguna Seca, Deletraz). Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to provide a better
championship finish as this year the two cars slipped to 8th (40)
and 11th (10) in the final points tally. They finished outside of
the top 5 in 66% of the races although they only had two DNFs. That particular
stat is much more condemning than it seems, because it means that they weren’t
failing to finish, they were just failing to finish well. The performance
simply wasn’t there. You can’t blame the manufacturer either, because the
successes of Whelen and Cadillac counterbalance that. Was it something
different with the drivers? Nope. No change for either of the squads meant they
had the same consistency that won them races with Acura. The magic wasn’t there
for WTR the last two years. Qualifying showed a big discrepancy though,
particularly with regard to the strength of Deletraz. He had the third best
average for the season, 3.3, which went mostly unnoticed throughout the year.
Albuquerque got beaten here, with an average of 7. Both drivers did every
session for the year.
As far as
in race performance goes, Louis Deletraz once again blew the competition out of
the water. He had the second-best average Position and Pace and the best time
to co-drivers of the year (0.128). Compare Louis’ time to Jordan’s time (0.436)
and remember that they were in the same car. Ricky was the next best for WTR
drivers on Position but was 11th overall, 15th for Pace
and 17th for co-driver. Jordan struggled most, 16th for
Position 13th for Pace and just behind Ricky for co-driver.
Albuquerque was between the brothers on Position but ahead on Pace and
co-driver average, still a quarter second off the average from Deletraz. Louis
was on another planet, fastest of the WTR drivers in 5 races. He found
performance where the others didn’t, but it wasn’t his car that won a race.
Clearly something isn’t working for this organization right
now, and with no declared big changes to the team, I fear it’ll be more of the
same for WTR going forward.
Cadillac Whelen – 31 (Aitken, Bamber [not Long Beach] &
Vesti)
From a
team where everything went wrong to a year where mostly everything clicked.
Championships for Jack, the team, Cadillac. Only twice all year did they fail
to finish, and it was only in both of those races that they weren’t the best
finishing Cadillac. They lost the Rolex by 1.569 seconds to start the year, and
this after their fourth driver cost them a drive thru penalty mid race, putting
them a lap down, that they had to fight back from. All of the drivers had
moments over the course of the year that led to big discussions, particularly
Jack at Road America and Earl at Watkins Glen. All in all, they showed up every
race and performed better than anyone else. 7 podiums in 9 races, wins in
Detroit and Watkins Glen, 3 poles, and 3 Fastest Laps.
First
off, Fred participated in 6 races this year so I’m counting him. He was the
fastest driver in the 31 at Daytona and Sebring, and had better average
Position (12th) and time to co-drivers (11th ) than
Bamber (14th and 13th respectively). Bamber beat him in
average Pace, 12th to 18th. But both guys couldn’t hold a
candle to our champion. Jack had the 5th best Position and Pace, and
third best time to co-driver by two-thousands of a second to Blomqvist. In
qualifying, Jack had only one session all year where he was out of the top 5,
and averaged 3.9. He was pretty darn solid in 2026.
Whelen was the team to beat this
year, and although they weren’t perfect in the races, they did exactly what
they needed, sealing all of the championships before the end of lap 1 of Petit
Le Mans. It’s poetry that their average finish was 3.1. They still want the
watch, and that will be their biggest challenge yet. The 31 Whelen entry has
never won Daytona.
Heart of Racing Team – Aston Martin – 23 (Gunn & De
Angelis)
The
biggest question in race fans minds everywhere is when will the Valkyrie win.
It’s a testament to what a fan favorite this beast has become that millions of
people around the world do not doubt that this car is capable of race victories
in a super competitive series. But are the race fans right? The BoP has been
beyond favorable for the Valkyrie for more than a year now, and in 2 years of
IMSA competition it has achieved only one podium. In 2026, the Valkyrie had
only 2 top 5 finishes, and one of those came when only 5 cars in class made it
to the checkered flag on the track. They only didn’t finish at Watkins Glen,
when Roman was involved in the crash in the esses toward the beginning of the
race. So, the rest of the time, they were in the races but not competitive. The
numbers speak to that. Starting in qualifying, Gunn did every session but
averaged 8.6. The only category in which
the drivers were in the top ten was time off co-driver pace, where Gunn and De
Angelis were 7th and 8th, showing they were very well
matched this year. Gunn was faster in 6 races to Roman’s 2, but overall, they
were both in the bottom 3 of Pace and Position. De Angelis and Gunn finished 14th
in the championship, behind two drivers who missed races, and more than 750
points adrift of the champion. Aston Martin only once all year was not the
worst scoring manufacturer in qualifying, beating only Porsche at Laguna Seca,
and only twice were they not the worst scoring manufacturer in a race, again
beating only one other manufacturer in each occurrence. Simply put, it was a
very embarrassing year. The sole moment of glory was Ross Gunn setting the
Fastest Lap of the race at Petit. They had only 2 other laps all year that
registered in the top 10. Despite all of the BoP help possible (max power and
lightest weight), the Valkyrie couldn’t find success. They’ll have to look for
other answers besides BoP help to get to the podium.
JDC Miller MotorSports – Porsche – 85 (Tijmen van der Helm
& Heinrich [Laguna, Detroit, Watkins, Road America])
I’ve said
in the past, JDC Miller MotorSports are the true underdog team for which
everyone has a soft spot. When they won at Laguna, finally getting their first
win since Sebring 2021, the racing world cheered. It was a big moment for
Laurin Heinrich, establishing firmly that he is a championship contender in
IMSA if he’s full season in anything (and even if he’s partial season, the guy
is that good), but what a moment for the Church family. They ran a Porsche
without all of the expensive upgrades, qualified terribly (best start position
all year was 5th at Watkins), and still managed to trouble the big
dogs for podium spots all year. Along with the win at Laguna Seca, they
finished on the podium at both Watkins Glen and Road America. But there’s no
denying, Heinrich made the difference. Without him, they finished 7th
8th 9th and DNF. Heinrich’s big moments of weakness came
at Long Beach and Detroit, the latter of which earned him a stop plus 60 penalty.
Heinrich set the Fastest Lap during Long Beach, and was only once not the
fastest driver in the JDC Porsche. van der Helm was with De Angelis and Eng for
Average Position, but had the worst Average Pace and the worst gap to
co-drivers of the year, thanks to the Long Beach strategy of having him
complete drive time under safety car. If that weekend is eliminated, he stays
where he was for Average Position but moves to mid-pack for Pace and between
Vanthoor and Estre for time off co-driver. That wouldn’t be bad, but he’s still
closer to Frederick than Heinrich. Frederick,
credit where it’s due, had a better qualifying average than van der Helm, 9.7
compared to 10.8.
Yes, in 2026 JDC finally got
another win, but if they don’t want it to be another 5 years before their next
victory in the top class, they need to see who else they can bring into their
program since Heinrich will be in the Penske machine full time for 2027. This
year did prove that with the right drivers, this small but mighty team is right
up there with the factory programs.
Driver of the Year –
On
paper, this could be 5 drivers easily. Aitken won the championship. Heinrich
nearly did while piloting two different cars from two very different teams with
vastly different budgets. Deletraz outperformed his machinery and team, putting
up stellar numbers that his teammates couldn’t touch. Yelloly, once again, did
stunning things in the Acura, extracurricularly winning Le Mans for the second
time in his second attempt and signing a contract with Ford to pilot their new
Hypercar as well. But for me, it’s a driver of a car that didn’t get a victory
in 2026 that gets the title. Tom Blomqvist had the best average Position
by 2, the best average Pace by four hundredths, and the second best average
time to co-drivers with Nick Yelloly as a teammate! Ultimately, that’s the
straw that broke the camel’s back. Deletraz had the better average in that
category, but he was up against drivers not even in the top-15 whereas
Blomqvist was directly against another driver who could be categorized as DotY.
Tom also had the best qualifying average, and he did that by running in every
qualifying session of the year. He too will be sporting the Blue Oval next
year, and if Ford puts Yelloly/Blomqvist/Campbell in the same car, they’ll have
a machine limited only by what it can give the drivers, and not what those
drivers would be capable of giving them. Although he got no IMSA trophies this
year, I hope Tom appreciates his Driver of the Year award; it’s very richly
deserved.
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