The Worlds of F1, IndyCar, NASCAR and Supercars Join IMSA’s Best
By John Oreovicz
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Daytona Beach is one of the world’s most popular vacation destinations. But the Florida hot spot’s main attraction for visitors this weekend lies about five miles inland on U.S. 92 from the scenic Atlantic oceanfront.
Appropriately, the road west is called International Speedway Boulevard, because it leads to Daytona International Speedway, site of the Rolex 24 At Daytona – the opening round of the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. It’s the 64th time the Rolex 24 will be staged. This year, it has assembled a diverse field of 228 drivers representing 32 nations for a race that plays out over 24 hours, yet is often not decided until the final few minutes.
Because the Rolex 24 is also a round of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup, the race not only attracts additional entries that swell a typical WeatherTech Championship field of around 40 cars up to at least 60. It requires every full season competitor to add third or for most cars, fourth drivers, to their usual sprint race pairings. That creates opportunities for drivers from across the spectrum of motorsports to step out of their comfort zone to participate in one of the world’s most unique racing events.
Ten drivers with past F1 experience are in the field (Felipe Nasr, Will Stevens, Kevin Magnussen, Jack Aitken, Sebastien Bourdais, Logan Sargeant, Paul Di Resta, Pietro Fittipaldi, Romain Grosjean, Marcus Ericsson).
Ericsson is also one of four Indianapolis 500 winners in the Rolex 24 field (Scott Dixon, Alex Palou, Will Power) and one of more than a dozen drivers with significant or current ties to Indy car racing. That includes Power, who is set to make his first Rolex 24 start in the No. 75 75 Express Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class.
Other notable guest stars in this year’s Rolex 24 field include rising NASCAR star (and sports car racing graduate) Connor Zilisch, fellow NASCAR (and ex-IndyCar) driver AJ Allmendinger and Indy car racer-turned-broadcaster James Hinchcliffe, among others.
“I love it,” declared four-time IndyCar Series champion and reigning Indy 500 winner Alex Palou, who compliments regular drivers Nick Yelloly and Renger van der Zande in the No. 93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06, joined at Daytona by Japanese Super Formula star Kaku Ohta.
“It’s one of those things that is so different from what I’m used to – racing for 24 hours, having traffic during the race, and sharing a car. I learn so much from those amazing drivers and the level of competition is super high in all the classes in the IMSA paddock. I’m always learning and just trying to get a lot of laps as I can to prepare for my season.”
Scott Dixon, Palou’s IndyCar teammate at Chip Ganassi Racing, has contested the Rolex 24 every year since 2004, giving him the longest active participation streak. Dixon owns three overall Rolex 24 victories (2006, ’15, ’20) and another class win (2018), and this year he’s also part of the Meyer Shank Acura effort, teaming in the No. 60 ARX-06 with Colin Braun, Tom Blomqvist, and Allmendinger (another Rolex 24 overall winner).
“One, it’s a great way to start the year, but two, going back to the first time I did Petit Le Mans in 1999 with Stefan Johansson and Jim Matthews (in a Doran Racing Ferrari 333SP), endurance racing is something I have always enjoyed,” said Dixon. “The prototype racing has definitely evolved. By 2004 or ’05 there were 30 or 35 of them and the field was stacked, but it was kind of weird too because maybe only ten finished. There was a lot of attrition, and you really had to try to be smart with the car in how you drove it and looked after it. Now you might have a field of only 11 or 12, but a high percentage of them are likely to finish.”
Scott McLaughlin’s career has taken him from Australian Supercars to Indy cars, where he is a mainstay with Team Penske. McLaughlin has contested the Rolex 24 the last three years in either LMP2 or GTD PRO. He tested a Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 GTP prototype last year and is eager to take on the Rolex 24 in the top class someday. This weekend, he’s in the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette Z06 GT3.R in GTD, to mark his third different WeatherTech Championship class.
“I just think it’s one of the crown jewels of the year,” McLaughlin remarked. “It’s just a good way to get started on the year and get things going with being a racecar driver again. You can pound as many laps as you want in a go kart or lift as many weights as you want in a gym, but nothing really prepares you for racing moments and traffic and stuff and I enjoy it. Ultimately, I’d love to be doing it outright at some point in my career.”
Kyle Kirkwood, coming off a three-win IndyCar campaign for Andretti Autosport and a past IMSA winner at both the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring and Motul Petit Le Mans, is back for another Rolex run in GTD PRO in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3. He appreciates the teamwork that goes into sports car racing.
“It’s a lot of fun because it’s such a different discipline and there’s something satisfying as a driver about sharing a car with three or four guys,” Kirkwood related. “You do some laps in the car and sometimes you feel something you’re kind of unsure about. You say you’re a little confused about what kind of read the car gives you, but if you have two or three other guys that jump in the car and say the same thing as you, it’s a very satisfying feeling. It’s very confidence inspiring.”
Colton Herta is leaving the IndyCar Series this year to compete in Formula 2, with the goal of graduating to the Cadillac F1 Team in 2027 or ’28. But the 25-year-old wants to continue opening his season at Daytona in the Rolex 24 provided he does make the jump.
“I love this race; ideally, what my schedule would look like is I’m here ever year, even if I make it to Formula 1,” he said. “It’s super fun. The racing is great, and the formula they have in GTP is very exciting. It’s an exciting car to drive, it’s exciting to watch, and most importantly, the racing is fun. This is a really hard race to win; it’s such a prestigious event, and I think that’s why it attracts so much on the driver side and the manufacturer side.”
While the Rolex 24 features dozens of ‘guest’ drivers in an endurance role – many of them champions and stars in their usual form of racing – they tend to let the core drivers start and finish the race. But the WeatherTech Championship regulars enjoy racing twice around the clock at Daytona every bit as much.
“If you look at this race last year, with 45 minutes to the end it looked like we were going to win but we eventually finished P4 because we had this issue with the splitter,” said Philipp Eng, who shares the No. 25 M BMW M Hybrid V8 this year with Marco Wittmann. “That’s why I love racing in this championship – you can finish last, but you can also win if you don’t have the quickest car that day with how the yellows fall and all that. You just never know. It’s always very open and the racing is so good and so tight.”
The Rolex 24 at Daytona takes the green flag at 1:40 p.m. ET on Saturday, January 24 on network NBC. Peacock (USA), along with IMSA.TV and the official IMSA YouTube channel (international) will stream flag-to-flag uninterrupted coverage, and NBC will return to broadcast final two hours.