The one thing to look forward toward in the cold of January is the 24 Hours of Daytona, and with a winter storm brewing that could swarm most of the Eastern part of the United States, the sunshine and palm trees of the Atlantic Coast could be a nice distract. A 24-hour race will keep plenty busy inside as the weather turns inhospitable outside.
Daytona is more than just an endurance race, but the opening round to the IMSA season, which will see 11 rounds contested through the first weekend in October.
Schedule
In terms of venues, there are no changes to the 2026 season, but race lengths are changing at a pair of events.
With the 24 Hours of Daytona opening the season this weekend, the 12 Hours of Sebring will follow as the second round on March 21. One month later, the GTP and GTD classes will run at Long Beach on April 18. GTD Pro will join those two classes on May 3 at Laguna Seca. GTP and GTD Pro will race at Detroit on May 30.
The 6 Hours of the Glen marks the halfway point of the season on June 28. In July 12, LMP2, GTD Pro and GTD will race at Mosport. Road America will host a six-hour race on August 2, the first time it has hosted an endurance race since IMSA's reunification.
The only GT-only race will be on August 23 at Virginia International Raceway. All four classes will run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on September 20, the only regular distance race with every class competing in this season. Petit Le Mans closes the season from Road America on October 3.
What is Different?
GTP
The defending GTP champions are not defending. Porsche Penske Motorsport has three new full-time drivers. Mathieu Jaminet has left the program to race for the Genesis Magma Racing program in the FIA World Endurance Championship. Matt Campbell will be an Endurance Cup-only driver this season in the #6 Porsche. Laurens Vanthoor and Kévin Estre will be back as the full-time drivers.
Felipe Nasr is the one returning Porsche Penske driver with Julian Andlauer being his full-time co-driver. Laurin Heinrich will be the #7 Porsche's Endurance Cup driver after running for AO Racing in GTD Pro.
Team WRT has taken over the BMW M Hybrid V8 program from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. The full-time drivers are the same but Sheldon van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor will be in the #24 BMW with Philipp Eng and Marco Wittmann taking over the #25 BMW.
JDC-Miller Motosports is back, but it has Nico Pino joining Tijman van der Helm full-time.
LMP2
TDS Racing has an entirely new lineup with Tobias Lütke and David Heinemeier Hansson move over from Era Motorsport, and they will have Mathias Beche joining the program.
Era Motorsport has set an endurance lineup of Ferdinand Habsburg, Naveen Rao and Jacob Abel. Logan Sargeant will run at the 24 Hours of Daytona.
Intersport Racing is back running with HMD Motorsports. Oliver Jarvis and Jon Field will be the full-time drivers. Seth Lucas will run the endurance races.
Bryan Herta Autosport and PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports have partnered with Misha Goikhberg moving back after six season in GTD. Harry Tincknell will be his co-driver.
GTD Pro
With Heinrich moving to the Porsche Penske Motorsport GTP program in an endurance role, AO Racing has taken in Nick Tandy for the #77 Porsche, and Harry King will be the second co-driver after King spent 2025 in GT World Challenge Europe and racing a GT300 entry in Super GT.
Klaus Bachler moves from AO Racing to Manthey Racing to drive the #911 Porsche in an Endurance Cup entry with Ricardo Feller and Thomas Preining. Ayhancan Güven will complete the lineup at Daytona.
Pfaff Motorsports will have Sandy Mitchell partner Andrea Caldarelli in the #9 Lamborghini.
VasserSullivan is reuniting Jack Hawksworth and Ben Barnicoat in the #14 Lexus.
Ford Multimatic Motorsports has shaken up the #64 Mustang entry with Dennis Olsen and Ben Barker both expanding from Endurance Cup drivers to full-time drivers. The 2025 full-time drivers Mike Rockenfeller and Sebastian Priaulx will run the endurance races in the #64 Ford and #65 Ford respectively.
Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing remain in IMSA, but RLLR will now run the McLaren program in GTD Pro. Max Esterson and Nikita Johnson will be the full-time drivers.
GTD
With Barnicoat back in GTD Pro, Aaron Telitz drops to GTD and he will share the #12 Lexus with Benjamin Pedersen, and Frankie Montecalvo will be the Endurance Cup driver.
Riley Motorsports will run a Ford Mustang in the class, and its full-time drivers will be Felipe Fraga and Sheena Monk. Jenson Altzman will join the #16 Ford lineup for the endurance races.
Heart of Racing Team will have Eduardo Barrichello as one of its full-time drivers in the #27 Aston Martin. Barrichello will have Tom Gamble, Zachary Robichon and Mattia Drudi join him at Daytona.
Manny Franco has a new co-driver at Conquest Racing. Albert Costa will join him in the #34 Ferrari.
Mason Filippi will be full-time for DXDT Racing in the #36 Corvette. Charlie Eastwood and Salih Yoluç will run the endurance races.
Gradient Racing has Joey Hand and Jake Walker together in the #66 Ford Mustang.
DragonSpeed is back in the category with the #81 Corvette for Giacomo Altoè and Henrik Hedman.
Callum Ilott has added full-time IMSA driver to his IndyCar responsibilities. Ilott will be in the #120 Porsche for Wright Motorsports with Adam Adelson.
What is the Same?
GTP
None of the three Cadillac teams changed its drivers. Whelen Racing will have Jack Aitken and Earl Bamber in the #31 Cadillac while Wayne Taylor Racing has kept Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque together in the #10 Cadillac. Jordan Taylor and Louis Delétraz remain a pair in the #40 Cadillac.
Meyer Shank Racing has kept Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun together in the #60 Acura, and unchanged is the #93 Acura of Renger van der Zande and Nick Yelloly.
Aston Martin THOR Team will run Roman De Angelis and Ross Gunn in the #23 Aston Martin.
LMP2
The champions are back with Dane Cameron and P.J. Hyett together in the #99 Oreca for AO Racing.
Dan Goldburg will be in the #22 United Autosport Oreca with a co-driver for the full season still undecided.
Sébastien Bourdais and John Farano remain together in the #8 Oreca for Tower Motorsport.
CrowdStrike Racing by APR continues with George Kurtz driving alongside Malthe Jakobsen, Alex Quinn and Toby Sowery.
Inter Europol Competition has Jermey Clarke and Bijoy Garg together in the #43 Oreca.
Pratt Miller Motorsports will continue with Pietro Fittipaldi and Chris Cumming in the #73 Oreca.
GTD Pro
Corvette is unchanged. Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims will defend the class championship in the #3 Corvette. Tommy Milner and Nicky Catsburg will drive the #4 Corvette.
Paul Miller Racing has kept the #1 BMW with Connor De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen, but the #48 BMW is gone. However, Max Hesse remains as an endurance driver. Dan Harper will run Daytona only.
Christopher Mies and Frédéric Vervisch remain together in the #65 Ford Mustang.
GTD
Winward Racing is keeping the band together. Russell Ward and Philip Ellis attempt to win a third consecutive GTD championship in the #57 Mercedes-AMG.
Turner Motorsport keeps Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher together in the #96 BMW.
Wayne Taylor Racing will continue to run the #45 Lamborghini for Danny Formal and Trent Hindman.
What is fun about Daytona?
Every year the first round of the IMSA season brings out top drivers from around the world of motorsports to compete in the first major endurance race of the season.
Álex Palou and Scott Dixon are back with Meyer Shank Racing with Palou in the #93 Acura and Dixon in the #60. Palou has Kakunoshin Ohta also joining the #93 Acura for Daytona while A.J. Allmendinger is back in the 24 Hours of Daytona for the first time since 2021 as the fourth driver in the #60 entry.
Colton Herta will still run the endurance races in the #40 Cadillac despite his new Formula Two endeavor.
BMW has Robin Frijns and René Rast rounding out the #24 BMW's lineup while Kevin Magnussen and Raffaele Marciello will be in the #25 BMW.
Connor Zilisch joins the #31 Whelen Racing Cadillac team alongside Aitken, Bamber and endurance driver Frederik Vesti.
In LMP2, Inter Europol Competition has entered a one-off for Nick Cassidy, Nolan Siegel, Jakub Śiechowski and Georgios Kolovos. AF Corse is back with François Perrodo, Matthieu Vaxivière, Nicklas Nielsen and Dylan Murry. Enzo Fittipaldi will join his brother Pietro in the Pratt Miller entry. Christian Rasmussen and Jonny Edgar round out the AO Racing #99 Oreca lineup.
Triarsi Competizione will have the #033 Ferrari entered in GTD Pro for James Calado, Miguel Molina, Riccardo Agostini and Alessio Rovera. Winward Racing will give GTD Pro a crack with the #48 Mercedes-AMG for Maxime Martin, Jason Hart, Luca Stolz and Scott Noble. Risi Competizione is back after a year away from Daytona. Alessandro Pier Guidi, Davide Rigon and Daniel Serra will drive the #62 Ferrari.
Kenny Habul's 75 Express Mercedes-AMG has brought together Will Power for his Daytona debut along with Chaz Mostert. Maro Engel is the lone non-Australian in the #75 Mercedes-AMG lineup. Bartone Bros with GetSpeed is running the #69 Mercedes-AMG for Maximilian Götz, Jules Gounon, Fabian Schiller and Anthony Bartone.
James Hinchcliffe and Mirko Bortolotti will round up the #9 Pfaff Lamborghini entry. Kyle Kirkwood is back as the #14 Lexus' third driver.
GTD will see Romain Grosjean (#16 Myers Riley Ford), Scott McLaughlin (#36 DXDT Racing Corvette) and Marcus Ericsson (#45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini) all compete in the class as additional drivers.
AF Corse has Antonio Fuoco heading up the #21 Ferrari along with Lilou Wadoux, Simon Mann and Tommaso Mosca. Triarsi Competizione will run the #023 Ferrari for Kenton Koch, Robert Megennis, Onofrio Triarsi and Yifei Ye.
Manthey Racing will bring out the #912 Porsche for Richard Lietz, Riccardo Pera, Ryan Hardwick and Morris Schuring.
What is at stake at Daytona?
Porsche has won the last two years with the #7 entry and six different drivers. The only consistent participant has been Felipe Nasr. The Brazilian will attempt to become the third driver with with three consecutive Daytona victories joining Peter Gregg and Hélio Castroneves. Porsche has not won at Daytona in three consecutive years since an 11-year run from 1977 though 1987.
Prior to this two-year run for Porsche Penske Motorsport, Wayne Taylor Racing won three consecutive years from 2019 to 2021 and Meyer Shank Racing won consecutive years in 2022 and 2023.
Whelen Racing ended the 2025 season with a pair of victories at Indianapolis and Road Atlanta. However, Whelen Racing has never won the 24 Hours of Daytona. Action Express Racing, which operates the program, won the race three times, most recently in 2018 with the Mustang Sampling Racing program.
BMW's only win as a constructor was in 1976 when Peter Gregg, Brian Redman and John Fitzpatrick won in a Brumos Racing BMW 3.0 CSL. BMW won twice more as an engine manufacturer during the Daytona Prototype era. Both those victories came powering Riley chassis for Chip Ganassi Racing in 2011 and 2013.
There has not been an all-European driver lineup to win at Daytona since 2002 when Doran Lista Racing won with Belgian Didier Theys, Swiss Fredy Lienhard, and Italians Max Papis and Mauro Baldi. That does not bode well for the #25 BMW group, which hosts four Europeans.
Wayne Taylor Racing is one victory away from tying Brumos Racing and Chip Ganassi Racing for most 24 Hours of Daytona victories at six.
Scott Dixon could become the seventh driver to win the 24 Hours of Daytona on four occasions. Dixon won in 2006, 2015 and 2020. This will be Dixon's 23rd consecutive 24 Hours of Daytona start, tying with him Hurley Haywood and Andy Lally for second all-time. Boris Said holds the record with 25.
Twenty-three of the 226 drivers will be making their IMSA debut.
