DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — “Pessimistic” would be too strong of a word.
But Christopher Mies wasn’t brimming with confidence about his prospects in the No. 65 Ford Racing Ford Mustang GT3 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca heading into the StubHub Monterey SportsCar Championship, the third round of the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for Grand Touring Daytona Pro class competitors.
“Sebring and Daytona were a bit difficult for us, so we’re looking forward to the first sprint race of the year and hopefully from now on it’s going to be better,” Mies said in a Friday media availability prior to on-track activity in Monterey. “We had decent results, but obviously we are looking for more. A podium here would be nice, maybe a win.
“But I would say this is the most complicated track for us on the calendar, just between the nature of the track and the car and what we’ve done in the past,” he cautioned. “Maybe the Evo helps get us closer to the front, and with a bit of luck and strategy, hopefully we will be right there in the end.”
Mies couldn’t have been more prescient. The “Evo” upgrades introduced this year for the third year of the Mustang GT3 program that focused on aerodynamics, suspension, and brakes appeared to pay off when Mies qualified third fastest on Saturday at a track where the Mustangs were lapped on pure pace in the 2025 race.
Things got even better Sunday, when the updated Mustang GT3’s inherent speed and smart strategy from Ford Racing and technical partner Multimatic Motorsports put Mies and co-driver Frederic Vervisch in position to claim the Laguna Seca win over Tommy Milner and Nicky Catsburg in the rival No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
Mustang scored three wins in 2025, with Mies and Vervisch sharing the Rolex 24 At Daytona-winning entry with Dennis Olsen, then Seb Priaulx and Mike Rockenfeller won at both Detroit and Indianapolis.
The “luck” line for Mies, in particular, stood out. The German’s year started inauspiciously when he struck a kangaroo during the Bathurst 12 Hour, ending the Mustang’s chances on the Australian mountain. And the luck appeared suboptimal early when Mies was assessed a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility with the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963, which caused a puncture to the No. 65 car and forced it onto an alternate strategy.
But that wound up ultimately paying dividends. The No. 65 Mustang was the first contender to make its last pit stop with just over an hour to go. Vervisch watched in the closing laps as the four cars ahead of him peeled into the pits for energy replenishment, leaving him out front to win by 1.277 seconds.
Like Mies, Vervisch was looking past WeatherTech Raceway in his anticipation of tracks that would suit the Mustang’s Evo upgrades. The California race win was not totally unexpected, but certainly welcome.
“We were very excited for the Evo; one of our weak points was the fast corners in this car, so we worked a lot on it and did a big update,” Vervisch said at the Friday media scrum. “We expected quite a lot and unfortunately, we started the year with really good races but without the results that we wanted. Laguna has always been a difficult track for us so we still think it will not be easy. But from then on, we hope to be really competitive and fight for wins. I think Ford deserves it. They put a lot of effort in.”
Ben Barker, who shares the No. 64 Mustang this year with Dennis Olsen, is also bullish on Ford’s chances in the upcoming races on the GTD PRO schedule, starting with the Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix May 29-30. Barker is contesting his first full WeatherTech Championship season although he’s raced intermittently since 2014.
“This is where the Evo will hopefully come into our hands a little bit because it strengthens some of the weaker parts of the car we had,” Barker said. “I don’t think it fully maybe flourished with the uniqueness of Daytona and Sebring. We’re coming to more standard tracks with flowing bends like Watkins Glen and Road America and hopefully we can see the benefits of the Evo a bit more and put it to show with some good pace.”
As far as Mies is concerned, the upgrades are already showing their merit.
“It’s paying off,” he said with a grin after the Laguna Seca victory. “The Evo package did its job. I’m so happy for everyone at Ford and Multimatic for that win and hopefully now we can fight for the championship.”
It promises to be an entertaining scrap, because after three of 10 races, Mies and Vervisch are just 74 points behind GTD PRO class leaders Milner and Catsburg in the driver’s standings. The manufacturer points are even closer, with four marques clustered within 67 points of top-ranked Chevrolet.
The perennial Ford vs. Chevy battle in Detroit promises to be a cracker.
“We have a lot of attention there for both brands and I think it’s cool if you can win that one,” Vervisch said. “But we want to win the championship – that’s what’s most important for us. Last year we won that race, which was great. But we don’t necessarily need to win it. We want to focus on the championship.”
