IMSA closed out its WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta the second weekend of October. The Motul Petit Le Mans is the series’ traditional season closer and also ends the five-race Michelin Endurance Championship in addition to ascertaining series champions throughout its GTP, LMP2, GTD PRO and GTD categories.
Even before the first cars started their engines in preparation for this season finale, IMSA had much to discuss. A total of 48 entries have been confirmed for the full WeatherTech season, with 55 slated to compete in the five Michelin Endurance Cup rounds. The season-starter, mid-winter’s Rolex 24 at Daytona is anticipated to entice more than 60 entries for the twice-around-the-clock enduro.
Timepiece maker Rolex, which has been allied with a variety of motorsports activities since the 1930s, has become the official timepiece of IMSA. The sanctioning body and Rolex announced that the iconic timepiece will continue its longtime partnership with IMSA’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, where Rolex has been a title sponsor of the 24-hour race since 1992. From 2025, Rolex is the official timepiece and the iconic brand has signed a long-term contract with IMSA to retain naming rights for the 24-hour race that starts each season.
IMSA’s relationship with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), begun in 2008, will continue as a co-sponsorship agreement, aligning IMSA with Green Racing protocols established by the EPA, the US Department of Energy (DOE) and SAE International. IMSA has long been an innovator in Green Racing with its emphasis on fuel economy, efficiency of design and manufacturing and finding technologies that shape a sustainable future.
A new partnership with Gainbridge, which is the presenting partner of the Indianapolis 500, brings STEM curriculum to race markets, starting with the 2025 IMSA racing season. Working with high schools in race markets that IMSA visits, selected students will get hands-on opportunities to visit their local IMSA event, talk to team engineers, drivers, manufacturers, corporate partners and IMSA officials, thanks to Gainbridge’s support and participation. The program begins, of course, the end of January at Daytona International Speedway, just as IMSA’s season starts.
Once practice, qualifying and racing began for Petit Le Mans, it was quite a fight and undecided until the final minutes. Endurance racing a la IMSA is never boring. While they didn’t take the championship in their final GTP outing, Cadillac Racing’s Chip Ganassi Racing won the battle, if not the war. With four-time INDYCAR champ Sebastien Bourdais, six-time INDYCAR champ Scott Dixon and Bourdais’ full-season partner Renger van der Zande at the steering wheel, the trio completed Ganassi’s time with Cadillac atop the podium after three setbacks during this 27th Petit Le Mans race.
The long contest was dominated by the Porsche Penske Motorsport pair of GTP 963s that were battling for the championship. They led most of the race – 235 of 443 laps – but not the battle for the race win. Despite sensor-related issues and a couple of pit-lane drive-through penalties, the Chip Ganassi Racing threesome were always in the mix – even though they had another issue when darkness finally came: faulty headlights. That overcome, the Cadillac V-Series.R attacked the pair of Penske Porsches and pulled out a 2.948-second victory over the No. 6 car, while the second, No. 7 car won the championship on points.
The first seven finishers were all GTP cars, with the No. 11 TDS Racing car first in LMP2 class with their ORECA LMP2 07 and eighth overall. It was the car’s fourth IMSA win and second straight victory after winning at Indianapolis in September. Still, the No. 52 Inter Europe by PR1 Mathiesen Motorsports gained its second overall championship in the class again this year, even while finishing the race fourth in class.
In GTD PRO, first-year entrants AO Racing brought their Porsche GT3 R coupe to the top of the GTD PRO standings. The team also fields an LMP2 entry and plan to continue that in 2025. As seemed to be the case throughout the final standings in this race, AO Racing wasn’t the class winner at Petit, but acquired sufficient points to gain the GTD PRO title, by a scant four points. Race winner was the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Iron Lynx Racing. In GTD, Conquest Racing’s Ferrari 296 GT3 won the race while Winward Racing took the season title with their Mercedes-AMG GT3.
IMSA’s 2025 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season begins with its pre-season Roar Before the Rolex 24 test sessions at Daytona International Speedway January 17-19, followed by the Rolex 24 at Daytona, set a week later, January 25-26, 2025.
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