All Four Daytona Class Winners Ultimately Wrap Michelin Endurance Cup Titles
By Tony DiZinno
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It stands to reason the better you do across all five IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup rounds, and the points-scoring segments within them, that you’ll have a great shot at capturing this particular title.
That was true in 2026, where all four Rolex 24 At Daytona class winners won the opening round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season to position themselves at the front of the Michelin Endurance Cup standings, and proceeded to secure these championships.
The No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963, No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07, No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO and No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 all emerged as Michelin Endurance Cup champions for 2026, with their road to the titles starting at Daytona International Speedway in IMSA’s longest and most prestigious event.
Nasr, Andlauer, Heinrich Lead Porsche’s GTP Charge
Porsche has got a roll going in Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) in the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup. The manufacturer and its No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 have won three straight team and manufacturer titles in IMSA’s championship-within-a-championship of the five longest races.
This year’s trio of winning drivers includes full-time drivers Felipe Nasr and Julien Andlauer and third driver Laurin Heinrich, who joined them for the three longest events and won two of them. The trio opened the season with the No. 7 car’s second consecutive “36 Hours of Florida” sweep across the Rolex 24 At Daytona and Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring. Even more incredibly, they got first place points in all seven segments – so the 35 points achieved there positioned them well for the rest of the way.
Heinrich drove extra races as part of the No. 5 JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 from Long Beach through Road America and took a different path to remaining tied with Nasr and Andlauer following Road America. Once they reunited for Motul Petit Le Mans in the No. 7 car, they remained even on 54 points over 14 total segments – a strong average of 3.8 points per segment (with a maximum of five points per segment possible).
CrowdStrike Racing by APR Wins LMP2
The No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA LMP2 07 won two of the five races and placed first in five points-scoring segments to win the Michelin Endurance Cup Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) title.
Although the No. 04 car won the Rolex 24 At Daytona, it initially trailed the No. 99 AO Racing ORECA by four points leaving Sebring. Nonetheless, the No. 04 car rallied with 31 of its 52 points across the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix and Motul Petit Le Mans while the No. 99 AO car scored only 22 in the same three races. That flipped the four-point deficit into a five-point title for the trio of George Kurtz, Alex Quinn and Toby Sowery.
Kurtz and the No. 04 team won the 2023 Michelin Endurance Cup LMP2 crown, then co-driving with Ben Hanley.
Paul Miller Racing Keeps Adding to Michelin Endurance Cup Record in GTD PRO
Paul Miller Racing’s knack for maximizing its Michelin Endurance Cup points and record continues. With a third different driver and/or car number combination in as many years, a PMR BMW is atop the Michelin Endurance Cup charts in Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) along with BMW, who won the manufacturer title on a tiebreaker over Chevrolet.
The quartet of full-season drivers Connor De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen, joined at Daytona by Max Hesse and Dan Harper, opened the year with the Rolex 24 win in their No. 1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO and left Sebring with a strong six-point lead across the first seven segments of the season. That six-point gap only fell by one to five at year’s end, with AO Racing’s No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) second in these standings.
It’s Verhagen’s second Michelin Endurance Cup title in three years, as he won in 2024 with Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow in the No. 1 car. Harper and Hesse in the team’s second No. 48 car won it in 2025. The team also won the 2020 Michelin Endurance Cup in GTD with Sellers, Snow and Corey Lewis in the No. 48 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo.
Winward Racing Rallies for GTD Title
Winward Racing’s resilience and comeback from 300 points down at Watkins Glen to win the full season Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) title will get a lot of discussion, and justifiably. But the team had to perform a similar Lazarus-like comeback to win its second Michelin Endurance Cup GTD title (2024), too.
Leaving Watkins Glen, after its second straight tough endurance race (Sebring), the familiar trio of Russell Ward, Philip Ellis and Indy Dontje sat seventh in these standings in their No. 57 Mercedes-AMG GT3, seven points behind leaders Antonio Fuoco and Simon Mann in the No. 21 Af Corse USA Ferrari GT3 EVO. With only 25 points remaining and a maximum delta of 15 points available to gain over that time, there was no more margin for error.
No matter. The Ward/Ellis/Dontje trio won at both Road America and Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta and scored just enough points in the other segments to net 18 of the possible 25. Fuoco and Mann scored only 10 in the same time frame, so that produced a one-point win for the No. 57 crew. It took just the right number of points-scoring combinations to knock three other contenders – the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) and No. 34 Conquest Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO – out of contention. Ferrari did win the manufacturer championship here by five points over Aston Martin, thanks in large part to five top-scoring segments.