What’s New, What’s Not, and What’s Brewing in the Record Books
By David Phillips
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Admit it. This time of year, even the most enthusiastic gearhead grows a trifle weary re-re-hashing last racing season, clicking-on “breaking news” of new liveries, or prognosticating about new season adjustments and tweaks.
Beyond the talk, racing is about to begin. It’s almost time to fasten your seatbelts for the 2026 Rolex 24 At Daytona.
Since 1966 and the first 24-hour race at Daytona International Speedway, branded the “24 Hour Daytona Continental,” the unofficial kickoff to the auto racing season starts in Florida. It’s a world class sports car racing featuring 12 of IMSA’s 18 automotive manufacturer partners, 60 cars, and 228 drivers from 32 countries that are among the world’s best to kick off the new IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup seasons.
Invariably, there is much new this weekend. It includes refreshed cars and driver rosters, new alliances between teams and manufacturers, and a bevy of already battle tested cars and lineups.
What’s New, What’s Not
Participants and observers alike will be afforded their first official insights into the new cars, lineups and partnerships that will compete for race wins and championships between now and October’s Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
Some of the more notable developments in Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) include BMW’s evolution of its Hypercar program with Belgium’s BMW M Team WRT team now campaigning two BMW M Hybrid V8s in two global sports car championships. Porsche Penske Motorsport, meanwhile, is focusing all its considerable talents and resources on fielding the No. 6 and 7 Porsche 963s in IMSA, as it begins its pursuit of a third straight WeatherTech Championship crown.
In Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), perennial IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge title contenders Bryan Herta Autosport partner with PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports to campaign the No. 52 ORECA LMP2 07.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan (RLL) Racing launches RLL Team McLaren, where it will campaign the No. 59 McLaren 720S GT3 EVO in Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO), returning to a category where the team enjoyed considerable success with BMW before tackling GTP the past couple of seasons. DragonSpeed, runners up in last year’s GTD PRO points race as well as three-time Rolex 24 winners, is switching to the GTD class with the No. 81 Corvette Z06 GT3.R. Speaking of GTD PRO, 2024 champions AO Racing features an all new line-up anchored by the redoubtable Nick Tandy who is seeking his first IMSA full-season title in “Rexy,” aka the No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992).
The early returns on some of these new or revised programs are promising. The PPM Porsches paced four of the six practice sessions in last weekend’s Roar Before The Rolex 24 test. Could it set the stage for the team’s third consecutive Rolex 24 win? Sheldon van der Linde’s No. 24 BMW set the pace in one of the night practice sessions and Dean MacDonald posted the opening practice session’s fastest GTD PRO time in the RLL McLaren.
Status Quo
In contrast to their counterparts at BMW, Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb Agajanian and Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing both return for second consecutive seasons with their longtime partner manufacturers (Acura and Cadillac, respectively) after relatively brief hiatus from those alliances in 2024. It’s a barometer of the fierce pace of development in GTP that even those abbreviated separations necessitated a period of re-adjustment when the teams and manufactures re-united last year.
But those re-adjustments are now in the rear-view mirrors of the No. 10 and 40 WTR Cadillac V-Series Rs and the No. 60 and 93 Acura ARX-06s. Both should hit the ground running this weekend. The No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R enters with more stability than usual with the same trio of Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti back after winning the last two races of 2025 and adding impressive youngster Connor Zilisch as its fourth driver. The Aston Martin THOR team returns for a sophomore season with its lineup intact after completing its rookie IMSA campaign last fall with the No. 23 Valkyrie’s mighty podium finish at Petit Le Mans, although has battled through mechanical gremlins in Roar testing ahead of the Valkyrie’s Rolex 24 debut.
Pfaff Motorsports has a rare Rolex without change. It’s set to run the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 for a second straight year, although is set to switch to the new Temerario GT3 at Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. The most familiarity comes for Vasser Sullivan Racing, as its No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 (in GTD PRO) and No. 12 Lexus RC F GT3 (in GTD) appear set for one more go at Daytona for the venerable chassis in its tenth year in pursuit of its elusive first Rolex 24 win.
In LMP2, the category is effective a spec class and comes down to which driver and team best executes racing with their ORECA chassis. It should come as no surprise then the top four in the ’25 team championship were separated by just 137 points. While three of that quartet are returning virtually similar lineups (Rolex 24 winners Daniel Goldburg with Paul Di Resta, Rasmus Lindh and Gregoire Saucy at United Autosports USA and AO Racing’s championship-winning duo of Dane Cameron and PJ Hyett supported by Jonny Edgar and Christian Rasmussen among them), last year’s bridesmaid TDS Racing boasts an all new cast of pilots headed by Tobi Lutke, Mathias Beche, David Heinemeier Hansson and Charles Milesi aboard the No. 11 ORECA.
A pat hand or new blood; which approach is better? This weekend will begin to tell the tale.
Record Hunting
Per usual, the Rolex 24 boasts an outstanding line-up of celebrated drivers taking time away from their day jobs in other racing series to compete this weekend. But while IndyCar champions Alex Palou, Scott Dixon, Will Power and Sebastien Bourdais (pictured right), Indianapolis 500 winner Marcus Ericsson, NASCAR winner A.J. Allmendinger and Australian Supercars champions Chaz Mostert and Scott McLaughlin get lots of ink, we would be remiss in overlooking the many IMSA regulars who have (or are on the cusp on setting) some records of their own.
With two consecutive Rolex 24 victories, PPM’s Felipe Nasr will be looking for a third straight win this weekend – and his fourth Rolex Daytona as he took the GTD PRO win in 2022. There’s a six-pack of three-timers already: Nasr, Filipe Albuquerque, Colin Braun, Antonio Garcia, Richard Lietz and Jordan Taylor.
And just to be clear, the aforementioned Dixon already has a trio of Rolex 24 overall wins to his credit and four total, the only four-timer in the field. He’ll be looking to add a fourth overall and fifth total Rolex Daytona to his timepiece collection this weekend. The legends with five overall wins? That’d be inaugural year IMSA Hall of Fame inductees Hurley Haywood and Scott Pruett as five-time winners of the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
Be sure to catch all the action on NBC, Peacock, YouTube and IMSA TV starting at 1:30 p.m. ET on Saturday.