BRASELTON, Ga. — Through the first four rounds of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup, several teams and manufacturers have maximized their in-race points-scoring opportunities versus their race-end results.
Heading into Motul Petit Le Mans to cap off the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season, two of the four class titles are fairly tight.
The IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup serves as a championship-within-a-championship at the series’ five-longest races. These five (Rolex 24 At Daytona, Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks and Motul Petit Le Mans) add up to 58 hours of racing, with points awarded at one or more in-race intervals before the finish.
At Motul Petit Le Mans, points are awarded at the four-, eight- and 10-hour marks. The top three in each class get five, four and three points at the intervals with all others scoring two. A maximum swing of nine points is possible from the most (15) to least (six) in-race.
In Grand Touring Prototype (GTP), Porsche Penske Motorsport’s No. 7 Porsche 963 used wins at the first two rounds in Daytona and Sebring and maximum points at five of the seven intervals in these two rounds to build a significant lead. But the gap has shrunk leaving Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
After tough Watkins Glen and Indianapolis races, Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy in the No. 7 Porsche still hold a three-point lead (39-36) over the No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing w/Curb-Agajanian pair of Colin Braun and Tom Blomqvist in their Acura ARX-06.
Indianapolis winners Cadillac Whelen with the trio of Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti in their No. 31 Cadillac V-Series R. sit third, six points back. Among manufacturers, Porsche leads Acura by two, and Cadillac by five (45, 43, 40).
Strong Indianapolis races for winners TDS Racing, last year’s full season champions Inter Europol Competition and two-race winners in 2025, United Autosports USA, have positioned these three ORECA LMP2 07 entries to be in contention for the Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) Michelin Endurance Cup title.
Tom Dillmann and Bijoy Garg lead the way in their No. 43 Inter Europol ORECA by five points over Steven Thomas, Mikkel Jensen and Hunter McElrea in the No. 11 TDS ORECA and Daniel Goldburg, Paul Di Resta and Rasmus Lindh in the No. 22 United ORECA (37-32).
Four other teams – CrowdStrike Racing by APR, Riley, AO Racing and Tower Motorsports – remain mathematically alive but need huge individual races and each of the top three to stumble, particularly the No. 43 car, to have any chance of a last-race comeback.
Paul Miller Racing will add to its Michelin Endurance Cup success in Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO), having won that title in its first year in the class in 2024. Leaving Indianapolis, its two BMW M4 GT3 EVOs sit first and second in points with the No. 1 trio of Madison Snow, Neil Verhagen and Connor De Phillippi four points clear of teammates Dan Harper and Max Hesse in the No. 48 car (41-37). The only question is which car will end on top.
AO Racing’s Laurin Heinrich and Klaus Bachler are best of the rest in third in their No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R, but 10 adrift of the No. 1 BMW heading into Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta and therefore unable to make up the maximum nine-point swing. BMW has a 16-point lead over Porsche in manufacturers (50-34) and has wrapped the GTD PRO manufacturer’s title in the Michelin Endurance Cup.
It’s anyone’s guess who will win the Michelin Endurance Cup title in Grand Touring Daytona (GTD), but Inception Racing’s win with Brendan Iribe, Frederik Schandorff and Ollie Millroy coupled with issues for its two closest rivals in Indianapolis gave them a good shot.
The No. 70 Inception Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 now leads the No. 21 Af Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 and the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo by three points (34-31) with Wright Motorsports within a shout in fourth at four points back with its No. 120 Porsche 911 GT3 R. Several others down to Winward Racing and Triarsi Competizione in eighth and ninth have remote mathematical paths available.
Ferrari’s success in this class has netted it the GTD manufacturer’s title in the Michelin Endurance Cup, with a 15-point gap over both Porsche and Aston Martin.
