IMSA wants to put on a good show with a six-hour race coming to Road America next year. If drivers can stay on track, that'd be helpful.
ELKHART LAKE – The last of IMSA’s sprint races at Road America, at least for now, is done.
Sports car fans have built the weekend into a huge hit for the series and track, clamored for more and got their wish. In 2026 the race itself will grow, more than doubled in length to become a six-hour endurance race.
That said, even drivers from the winning team agree a few things need to get cleaned up in the meantime.
“For sure there was a lot of cautions today,” said Dries Vanthoor, who co-drove to victory in a 1-2 finish for BMW M Team RLL in the Motul SportsCar Grand Prix. “I think driving standards are not the nicest.
“For everybody, it’s something we have to look into and then try to improve. It was a bit of a short race with all the cautions, but that made strategy more interesting and it luckily worked.”
Vanthoor and Phillipp Eng in the No. 24 BMW beat teammates Marco Wittmann and Sheldon van der Linde in No. 25 by 2.524 seconds for their first victory of the season.
The winners completed 66 laps around the rolling 4-mile course, but 22 of them were under full-course caution in a race of 2 hours and 40 minutes. That’s marginally better than the 2024 race, in which 25 of 62 laps were run under the yellow.
John Doonan, IMSA’s president, stopped short of saying cautions are an outright problem but conceded lap after lap behind a pace car isn’t a good look.
“We’re judged by putting on a great show, so my hope is we have less caution than we do green flag running,” Doonan said in a quick interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel during the race.
“I think the competition level is at the highest that it’s ever been in IMSA. So the racing is tight. We don’t advocate them coming together, but inevitably even with as big as Road America is, 48 cars at this place is a lot. Closing speeds of prototypes and GT cars is significant. So you never know how it’s going to play out.
“We want to put on the best show possible here for the fans and certainly anybody watching on NBC Sports.”
There’s nothing Road America or the other tracks on the circuit need to do, Doonan said.
According to van der Linde, there’s plenty the drivers can do. They just might need a nudge from IMSA officials to change.
“People love seeing close motor sports and people going on the gravel and door-to-door racing, but at some point, I think also for the fans to have constant racing we need to tidy that up a bit,” said van der Linde, a 26-year-old South African with international and U.S. experience.
“If there’s no consequences, the drivers are more prone to doing these kind of moves and pushing people wide. In WEC (the World Endurance Championship), if you do these kind of things you get a penalty instantly, which is probably a bit too much but somewhere in the middle would be good.”
Whatever the case, drivers are looking eagerly toward 2026 and the longest top-level sports car endurance race at Road America since a 4-hour event in 2012.
“To make the change from Indianapolis to here for the six-hour, I think I can speak on behalf of most drivers here,” said winning GTD Pro class co-driver Neil Verhagen, a first-time IMSA winner. “We all enjoy driving here more than at Indianapolis. At least I definitely do.
“And if I might add as well, the fans have been unbelievable this weekend as well … So I’m excited to see if that will grow even more for next year, when it’s a longer race.”
How did Dries Vanthoor, Phillipp Eng and BMW win the Motul Sports Car Grand Prix?
The win for BMW Team RLL came after the news that the manufacturer would split with Bobby Rahal’s team at the end of the season. Coincidentally, BMW RLL’s first victory came at Road America in 2009 in the defunct American Le Mans Series, also a 1-2 finish.
The team brought both cars in for their final stop with about an hour to go and then cycled to the front. Vanthoor finished 2.524 seconds ahead of the No. 25 car with the pole-winning No. 93 Meyer Shank Acura of Regner van der Zande and Nick Yelloly in third another second behind.
A dinosaur in LMP2 victory lane at Road America
AO Racing, whose dinosaur- and dragon-themed cars are overwhelming fan favorites in two classes, came away with a victory in LMP2.
PJ Hyett, Dane Cameron and the purple No. 99 ORECA named Spike won what the Illinois-based team considers its home race and its second in a row. Cameron finished 4 seconds ahead of the Europol Competition entry co-driven by Connor de Phillippi and Jeremy Clarke.
In addition to IMSA victories, Spike won its class in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Hyett, Cameron and Louis Deletraz in June.
“I always joke that we had sort of an outsized amount of airtime for how poorly we were doing on the racetrack just because it was so much fun to see this dinosaur running around the racetrack,” said Hyett, who formed AO in 2022 after making a fortune as a software developer.
“The fact that we can get that airtime, not just because of the fun characters but because we’re executing and winning these races is ultimately what I wanted to accomplish in this series.
“Last year the Rexy crew bringing home the championship, it’s just an absolute dream come true. And for us, I’d love to do it again this year with both cars and demonstrate it’s not just for fun. We’re here to win, but we can do both.”
BMW picks up two victories
Verhagen and Madison Snow co-drive the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 to victory in GTD Pro by 2.914 seconds over the No. 64 Ford Mustang of Mike Rockenfeller and Sebastian Priaulx.
Rexy, AO’s green No. 77 Porsche 911, finished eighth in GTD Pro after pitting from the lead with 13 ½ minutes to go.
First-time winner in GTD
Kenton Koch and Onofrio Triarsi earned the first IMSA victory for Triarsi Competizione in its No. 021 Ferarri 296. Misha Goikhburg and Mario Farnbacher finished second in Forte Racing’s No. 78 Lamborghini Huracan.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: IMSA cautions troublesome with 6-hour coming to Road America in 2026
Category: General Sports
