DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Both IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge class championship battles got closer in Canada, but the degree in which they did so varied.
RS1, is, in fact, human in Grand Sport. After five podiums in five races to start 2025, Jan Heylen and Luca Mars left Canadian Tire Motorsport Park with a ninth-place finish in the No. 28 Porsche 718 GT4 RS CS. CTMP winners Jeff Westphal and Sean McAlister ascended to second in points aboard the No. 39 CarBahn with Peregrine racing BMW M4 GT4 EVO but sit 260 points back with four races remaining.
In Touring Car, a rare podium-less race for the Bryan Herta Autosport w/Curb-Agajanian team saw the No. 76 Hyundai Elantra N TCR pair of Denis Dupont and Preston Brown gain 30 points to tie Harry Gottsacker in the No. 98 Herta Hyundai atop the TCR charts.
Those title battles are worth watching entering the Road America 120, Round 7, as well as to see if others riding the wave of form will keep momentum at the longest venue of the season.
After CarBahn, the Auto Technic Racing team has been strong of late in GS with five consecutive top-six finishes by Stevan McAleer and Austin Krainz in the No. 27 BMW M4 GT4 EVO to now sit fourth in points. They finished second last time out at CTMP and are poised to break through for their first win this year.
Last year, McAleer had a dynamic weekend at Road America in both Michelin Pilot Challenge and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship action. He won the GS race co-driving with Trent Hindman in RS1’s No. 28 Porsche, then finished third in the WeatherTech Championship Grand Touring Daytona class race in an Acura on Sunday.
McAleer noted how competitive the Michelin Pilot Challenge GS class is because a lot of the drivers he beat to victory last year primarily race in the WeatherTech Championship.
“If you look at the last restart at Road America, I’ve got Jack Hawksworth, Aaron Telitz, Kenton Koch and Robby Foley all behind me,” McAleer said. “And these are guys that can win and have won easily in WeatherTech.
“Any podium in Pilot Challenge and WeatherTech is a big deal. This series is harder in that, while two pros will generally win an all-green race over a pro-am car, it’s not always that way. The simple strategy means they can leapfrog easily on pit stops. It’s a very hard series to win in.”
McCumbee McAleer Racing with Aerosport, too, seeks its first GS win. Jenson Altzman and Nate Cicero have won the last two Motul Pole Awards, and Altzman and Chad McCumbee finished second in the No. 13 Ford Mustang GT4 at Watkins Glen International in the LP Building Solutions 120. Altzman sits third in GS points.
Fellow Ford competitor Stephen Cameron Racing broke through with a podium finish last time out at CTMP with its No. 19 Ford Mustang GT4 in the hands of Sean Quinlan and Gregory Liefooghe.
Both Matt Plumb (in the No. 46 Team TGM Aston Martin AMR Vantage GT4 Evo he shares with Paul Holton) and Billy Johnson (in the No. 59 KohR Motorsports Ford Mustang GT4 he shares with Robert Michaelian) remain in search of a record-setting, tie-breaking 25th Michelin Pilot Challenge race win.
Both are former Road America winners, although it’s been since 2015 (Plumb, GS) and 2016 (Johnson, GS) since they’ve won there.
TCR’s Road America weekend has been the happy hunting ground for Tim Lewis who’s won the last four races at the track in the KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering team’s previously entered Alfa Romeo. Now in the No. 5 Honda Civic FL5 TCR he shares with William Tally, the team seeks to improve upon its best finish of fourth at Sebring back in March.
MMG has been the hottest team in class the last two months with two poles, two race wins and three podiums, positioning Karl Wittmer and LP Montour in the No. 93 Honda Civic FL5 TCR third in points and only 110 back of the two Herta Hyundai entries.
With Alfa Romeo having won the last four Road America TCR races, Hyundai hasn’t won at the track since 2020 with its previous generation Veloster N TCR and Honda hasn’t won at the track since 2015 in the former ST class, with Ryan Eversley and Chad Gilsinger sharing HART’s No. 93 Honda Civic Si.
Eversley and IMSA 2025-’26 3D Scholarship recipient Celso Neto were Audi’s top finisher at CTMP, finishing third in the No. 7 Precision Racing LA Audi RS3 LMS TCR.
Speaking of HART, they’re one of several returning entries this race as part of a 38-car entry list split between 23 GS and 15 TCR cars. HART returns with its No. 89 Honda Civic FL5 TCR of Gilsinger and Tyler Chambers, while Cupra also makes its return with multiple cars.
Gou Racing is back after skipping CTMP while Victor Gonzalez Racing Team, formerly of Hyundai, sees its pair of Tyler Gonzalez and Eric Powell shift into the No. 99 Cupra Leon VZ TCR after back-to-back runner-up finishes in their Hyundai.
Jon Miller and Lance Bergstein shift their No. 18 Hyundai from VGRT to Herta’s team, the fifth car in that stable. Panam Motorsport’s Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2, LAP Motorsports’ Ford Mustang GT4 and a second CarBahn BMW M4 GT4 EVO are back in GS.
