DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A bevy of full-time IMSA competitors have scored either class wins or podium finishes in the 94th 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Inter Europol Competition repeated its win atop the entire Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class in a 1-2 finish, while CrowdStrike Racing by APR has doubled up major 24-hour race wins in 2026 in the category. The team won the LMP2 Pro/Am race on Sunday to add to its IMSA LMP2 class win at the Rolex 24 in January.
Nick Yelloly, Tom Dillmann and Jakub Smiechowski shared the winning No. 43 Inter Europol ORECA 07 Gibson. It’s Smiechowski’s third Le Mans win in the last four years, while Yelloly and 2024 IMSA LMP2 champion Dillmann double up their 2025 triumph.
“It’s amazing to be back-to-back Le Mans winners,” Dillmann told the TNT Sports broadcast. “That was some race, the last 12 hours with Nick pushing. It was great competition. We were fighting for every tenth on track. It was unbelievable. The team is always awesome here. You need so many parameters to come together to make it work. A 1-2 is fantastic.”
Duqueine Team led a bulk of the race before a brake failure sidelined the No. 30 ORECA that included Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Julien Andlauer alongside Richard Verschoor and Doriane Pin.
Meanwhile in LMP2 Pro/Am, George Kurtz, Alex Quinn and Laurin Heinrich controlled the bulk of the race in their No. 4 CrowdStrike by APR ORECA. Kurtz and Quinn were part of the same team’s LMP2-winning lineup at the Rolex 24, and Kurtz adds this class win at Le Mans to his 2023 one and the same category. AO by TF completed the LMP2 Pro/Am podium.
Porsche factory driver Heinrich, meanwhile, continues his own banner 2026 season by adding a Le Mans class win on debut to his overall win at the Rolex 24 in his IMSA Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) debut with Porsche Penske Motorsport. He adds his Le Mans win to his three IMSA GTP wins from five starts and two teams (PPM and JDC-Miller MotorSports) this season.
The IMSA accolades continued in the LMGT3 category, as both WeatherTech Championship GT class leaders graced the podium.
Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) championship leader Nicky Catsburg of Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports, was part of the winning LMGT3 lineup, sharing the No. 33 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R with Ben Keating and Jonny Edgar.
Edgar, AO Racing’s third LMP2 driver in IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup rounds, delivered a mammoth final stint in the car to bring it home to the finish ahead of Vasser Sullivan Racing’s Jack Hawksworth, who was in the No. 78 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F LMGT3 with Tom Van Rompuy and Hadrien David.
“Doing five stints in a row to finish the 24 Hours of Le Mans is going to be a career-defining moment for this man,” Keating told the TNT Sports broadcast. “He’s an animal.”
Edgar deferred the credit to his teammates: “It was great to drive with Ben! One of the reasons we were in a good position was Ben’s five stints at the start. From there we stayed in the top few positions. It’s so impressive what Ben and Nicky did. I’m very happy and grateful to drive for TF, so it’s nice to win.”
Corvette won in 2023 with the previous iteration C8.R in the last year of the LM GTE AM class, so this is its first win at Le Mans with the new Z06 GT3.R. It’s Corvette’s 10th win at Le Mans since its first in 2001, coming 25 years ago, and fourth for the TF team in its 10th year of operation. Keating has his third Le Mans class win (2022, 2023), Catsburg his second (2023) and Edgar his first.
WeatherTech Championship Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) points leader Eduardo “Dudu” Barrichello finished third aboard his No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 he shared with Jonny Adam and Gabe Newell.
The 2025 Jim Trueman Award winner, PJ Hyett, finished third in LMP2 Pro/Am with the No. 99 AO by TF ORECA – branded “Rockie” the Pegasus – he shared with fellow 2025 IMSA LMP2 champion Dane Cameron and James Allen.
“Tough to be out of the game as I made an error a few hours ago,” Cameron told Radio Le Mans near the finish. “We didn’t have enough in the middle portion. It’s been a tricky day, but there were no repercussions other than the time lost. The AO by TF guys kept us in the fight.”
Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing’s No. 101 Cadillac V-Series.R showed well more often than not in its second crack at Le Mans as a collective unit, with Jordan and Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque ninth in Hypercar.
“We had the pace at the beginning of the race,” Jordan Taylor explained to Radio Le Mans. “At the end of the night we had one little mistake that put us back. In this race, once you get out of track position and lose the gap, or you get the wrong slow zone and the wrong traffic, it kind of builds from there. We were on the back foot early on. Then we spent two to three stints working for the (JOTA) 12 car, doing some tire testing to see what would work for them at the end of the race.”
The 2025 Bob Akin Award winner, Orey Fidani, saw the 13 Autosport team’s race end early with accident damage sustained from another car forcing an early retirement for the No. 13 Corvette he shared with Matt Bell and Lars Kern.
The handful of IMSA teams and near three dozen full-time drivers who were in this race will reconvene as part of the next full WeatherTech Championship round, the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen at Watkins Glen International on June 28.
