GTP at three: Who’s first, who’s fast and who’s furious

The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship has gone through its two longest endurance races in Central Florida, two memorable races at Daytona and Sebring and one of its shortest street sprints in Southern California, a Long Beach race that advanced the plot but was otherwise unremarkable in terms of action and intrigue.

The premier GTP class is now one-third of the way through its nine-race schedule. Some will argue that the biggest prizes of the IMSA season were already given out when the Rolex 24 At Daytona winners received their watches, but every team is now laser-focused on the season-long championship and Michelin Endurance Cup titles which mean a lot to the manufacturers taking part in them.

You don’t need me to tell you that Porsche Penske Motorsport is in the sort of form where anything less than another clean sweep of the IMSA GTP championships would be a crushing disappointment. Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy haven’t lost a race this year in the No. 7 Porsche 963 — with three wins in three races, they’re on the longest winning streak in IMSA’s premier class since… well, Team Penske in 2020 with Helio Castroneves, Ricky Taylor and the Acura ARX-05. Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet have finished on the podium in all three races and completed Porsche 1-2s at Sebring and Long Beach, to reinforce the team’s IMSA dominance.

Understandably, a lot has been written about Tandy’s role, after completing his career 24-hour endurance grand slam — now affectionately known as the “Tandy Slam” — and the massive scope of his accomplishments in the highest levels of endurance racing.

Yet one can make a fair argument that from an individual performance perspective, Nasr is having as good a year as his co-driver — perhaps even better. It was his overtake for the lead in the last hour of Daytona that confirmed the “Tandy Slam” and thus the win for the No. 7 Penske Porsche. It was his move to the lead halfway through Sebring that put the No. 7 team in position to compete as the race progressed into the sunset. And remember, he’s also one of three Porsche Penske drivers who could complete the unprecedented feat of winning Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans in the same year (along with Laurens Vanthoor, whose GTD win for AO Racing also makes him undefeated on the season).

“We’re getting good at this,” Nasr said after the race at Long Beach. “I mean, it’s incredible — I haven’t had a season in my career that started with three wins like this. It’s pretty unique to put it all together. I know how much hard work those guys have been putting in back at Porsche Penske. And you see the two cars performing really well. It’s just incredible that we had all the pieces coming together.”

The Tandy Slam is just one portion of the Porsche Penske party thus far in 2025. Michael Levitt/IMSA

The No. 7 of Tandy/Nasr leads the GTP championship standings by 123 points over the No. 6 of Campbell/Jaminet, Porsche leads the GTP manufacturers’ championship by 137 points and mathematically can’t be overtaken until at least Detroit. Tandy, Nasr, and Porsche also have a commanding 265-point lead over the highest-ranking, non-Porsche GTP entry, and a commanding lead in the Michelin Endurance Cup standings to top it all off.

The only pressing questions for Porsche Penske now are, in no particular order: “Why has the FIA World Endurance Championship side fallen into a slump?” and “Will Porsche finally get its 20th Le Mans win?”

It’s also worth acknowledging the Porsche privateers. JDC-Miller MotorSports and the Endurance Cup entry from Proton Competition are a bit like the rest of GTP at the moment, playing catchup to the Penske factory cars. The results don’t really show it, but neither car has looked out of its depth this season — in particular, JDC-Miller has come a long way since the debut of its 963 two years ago, and we know that despite its blue-collar approach to racing, Proton Competition knows how to prepare a strong race car.

That leads us to BMW, where for the third race in a row, the dynamic Dries Vanthoor qualified fastest in No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 — and for the third race in a row, BMW M Team RLL was defeated by Porsche Penske. With the only tire strategy in GTP at Long Beach being “don’t change tires,” five more seconds in the pits to change drivers from Vanthoor to Philipp Eng was all it took for BMW’s chances of winning to escape.

The No. 25 of Sheldon van der Linde and Marco Wittmann had a miscue during the first full course caution — not coming into the pits with the rest of the GTP field and thus losing track position. From 10th place after the restart, they eventually recovered to fifth.

This has been the story of BMW M Team RLL’s season in GTP so far: Undeniable pace undone by small errors, whether it’s strategy, pit work, or plain bad luck. The results so far, versus the pace of the M Hybrid V8 which got a brake-focused Joker upgrade over the winter, are a disappointment. And honestly, that should be seen as an encouraging sign for BMW.

BMW had spent much of 2023 and ’24 lagging a step or more behind Cadillac, Acura and Porsche, until last autumn when Team RLL finished 1-2 in a mixed-weather Indianapolis race. Early in the M Hybrid V8’s life cycle, the brand would have been happy with these results because the pace wasn’t there. Now, these results represent unfulfilled potential.

Three weeks ago, RACER reported that BMW M Motorsport is mulling over a change in IMSA GTP partner teams after 2025, with potential suitors lining up to take over the contract if the Bavarian automaker decides that RLL can no longer fulfil the team’s ambitions in IMSA. After BMW M Team WRT got on the podium at Imola, the pressure on Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing to perform — or risk losing its place in the highest level of IMSA competition — will never be greater in the upcoming rounds.

Cadillac has had a hard time grabbing its customary share of the GTP spotlight, although AXR’s No. 31 has been close. Jake Galstad/IMSA

But they’re not the only ones that will be hungry for a win. After revamping its operations across both IMSA and WEC, Cadillac hasn’t put a car on the podium in either series.

At least, for the red Whelen No. 31 V-Series.R of Action Express Racing, they’re close. They got a fortunate break at Long Beach when AXR successfully appealed a post-qualifying penalty for unapproved pit work during the session, reinstating Jack Aitken to seventh on the grid at a race where track position is always the best asset a team can have. Aitken and Earl Bamber went on to finish fourth, matching their result from Sebring.

AXR will be without Bamber at Laguna Seca, which puts Frederik Vesti in a position to perform as his substitute driver. Vesti’s performance at Sebring at least gives more cause for optimism that the Danish rookie can rise to the moment.

But the other piece of Cadillac’s new “one team” era has not performed to the level that’s expected. Wayne Taylor Racing’s reunion with Cadillac has had a very difficult start, to say the least. Its two cars finished a race without any problems for the first time at Long Beach but were only good enough for sixth and seventh place on a weekend where neither car was really in the hunt for a win.

Crashes at Daytona and Sebring for the silver No. 40 car have set Jordan Taylor and Louis Deletraz way down the championship table in ninth. The blue No. 10 of Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque is sixth. One only wonders how Sebring could have gone if IMSA’s stewards had seen the onboard of Taylor’s close call with the No. 023 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 296 which showed that Taylor hadn’t hit the GT car in front of him. That was the infraction which led to a race-altering, 60-second penalty stop for the No. 10 crew at Sebring (and a fiery in-race interview with Wayne Taylor himself).

Wayne Taylor was livid with the Race Director during the #Sebring12. The No. 10 Cadillac received a 1-minute stop-and-go for incident responsibility. Charlie Scardina had crashed in the No. 023 Triarsi Ferrari, but the onboard from Ricky Taylor showed no contact was made.#IMSA pic.twitter.com/Wv6qjmX4xH

— Vincent Bruins Read More