Winning any of the five IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup races is an accomplishment in itself, and winning multiple races all but guarantees you’ll win that grueling championship-within-a-championship covering 58 hours of racing.
That was the model achieved by Porsche Penske Motorsport (Grand Touring Prototype), TDS Racing (Le Mans Prototype 2) and Winward Racing (Grand Touring Daytona), who all won at least two of the endurance rounds as part of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season en route to their respective Michelin Endurance Cup titles.
While Paul Miller Racing didn’t win one of the endurance rounds, the team best maximized the strategic element of scoring the most in-race points at assigned times during each race to capture the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) class title in its first year in the class.
It’s proof that different in-race philosophies can produce similar results of excellence in the five longest races on the calendar: the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks (Indianapolis Motor Speedway) and Motul Petit Le Mans (Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta).
Porsche Penske’s pair of Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr, joined at three of the five endurance races by Matt Campbell and at the Rolex 24 by Josef Newgarden, got out to a relatively comfortable lead in the GTP class with their No. 7 Porsche 963 after scoring wins at both Daytona and Watkins Glen. What was a five-point lead after the third of five Michelin Endurance Cup rounds extended to eight by the last, and the single biggest championship margin among the four classes.
“It is endurance racing, and at the end of the day, it gets more aggressive as it gets more competitive,” Cameron said. “If you don’t get to the end of these things, then you don’t score points, and you don’t end up winning a championship.
“My mindset is willing to give up that individual moment, or whatever it may be, to make sure you get to the end of the day and you kind of win the overall war, let’s say.
“Honestly, to lead the year from start to finish,” continued Cameron, “which I have never done before … it’s certainly a bit easier when you lead from the beginning, for sure.”
Winward was both consistent and dominant in its races, starting the Michelin Endurance Cup season with a hat trick of wins at Daytona, Sebring and Watkins Glen. Russell Ward, Philip Ellis and Indy Dontje had a three-point lead leaving Watkins Glen in their No. 57 Mercedes-AMG GT3. However, they held on to win the endurance title in GTD by just one point as an armada of others scored points, but none were able to surpass the winning GTD trio.
Dontje, Winward’s endurance driver, was quick to highlight how far the organization has come to cap a banner year with a pair of titles – the team also won the overall GTD championship.
“If you see where they started seven years ago, and in the end – I think it’s seven years now – in the end winning an IMSA championship is something special and to be proud of,” he said. “I had a small part of it only in the Endurance Cup to win.”
Porsche (GTP) and Mercedes-AMG (GTD) won the respective Michelin Endurance Cup manufacturer championships with their teams as well.
TDS did the opposite of the first two teams, as the trio of Mikkel Jensen, Steven Thomas and Hunter McElrea maximized their results at the back end of the season in the No. 11 ORECA LMP2 07 car. The trio won by seven points, courtesy of scoring 24 of a possible 25 points (five points are awarded to each class leader at the designated junctures in endurance races) on their way to back-to-back victories to end the year at Indianapolis and Michelin Raceway.
Thomas, the car’s Bronze-rated driver, started his racing career much later than his younger pro co-drivers. But succeeding in what was widely hailed as a very deep, competitive field of Bronze-rated drivers in LMP2 served as a major moment in his career, especially at his home race.
“This one was big because we also won the Endurance Cup, which was my first IMSA season championship,” Thomas said. “That was big. I was born in Atlanta, so coming home to Atlanta and winning Road Atlanta means a lot to me.
“I think the traffic here for a Bronze is brutal, and it’s like a big puzzle. To me, it’s the most fun race of the year because of the traffic. I love it.”
Paul Miller Racing’s outcomes differed, as the No. 1 BMW M$ GT3 won the Michelin Endurance Cup crown in GTD PRO with only a best end-race finish of third at the Rolex 24. Where the trio of Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow and Neil Verhagen succeeded was in securing first-place in-race points a class-high four times.
Those in-race moments as engineered and guided from the strategy box helped them beat their Michelin Endurance Cup rivals, Risi Competizione and its No. 62 Ferrari 296 GT3, by just two points.
“First season in IMSA, first season with Paul Miller Racing, to end it as Michelin Endurance Cup champions is something very special,” said Verhagen, the newest PMR driver in 2024 alongside veterans Sellers and Snow.
“I have to give everyone here in the team a huge thanks, Mitchell (Simmons, team manager), Lars (Giersing, engineer/strategist), Paul (Miller), Bryan, Madison, everybody involved in the program. It’s been an amazing journey. Definitely some good highs and some low lows, but at the end of the year we’re bringing home a title. Hopefully, it’s not my last!”
Owing to a points penalty for exceeding demonstrated performance levels, both BMW and Ferrari lost all their Michelin Endurance Cup points at the Rolex 24, opening the door for Chevrolet to clinch the GTD PRO manufacturer endurance title. Lamborghini, whose last-race charge by leading every segment of the Motul Petit Le Mans, fell just a single point shy of Chevy.
IMSA Wire Service PR
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