40 cars will compete in this weekend’s WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca 120, the third round of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge series.
The field is made up of 24 GT4 cars in the Grand Sport (GS) class and 16 TCR touring cars. And this two-hour race is guaranteed a new winner in the GS class for the fifth time in five years: None of the four previous teams that have won are in this race, and only one driver from those teams – 2021 race winner Jan Heylen – is in the field this weekend.
Heylen and RS1 co-driver Luca Mars lead the GS standings by 50 points after two races, with Daytona winners Moisey Uretsky and Michael Cooper in second for Accelerating Performance.
The most recent winners in this year’s field are CarBahn with Peregrine Racing’s Sean McAlister and Jeff Westphal, who sit third in the GS standings after their win at Sebring in March.
Czabok-Simpson Motorsport (CSM) is entering its #3 Porsche Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport for the first time, driven by Nikita Lastochkin and Chase Jones. Theirs is one of two new entries at Laguna Seca, alongside the #14 AR Motorsports Porsche driven by David Hampton and local driver Thomas Merrill.
The #53 Kingpin Racing Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO2 and #66 CDR Valkyrie Porsche each return after skipping the Sebring round, while KOHR Motorsports is only entering its #59 Ford Mustang GT4 for Bob Michaelian and Billy Johnson Jnr. BGB Motorsports is another notable absence as the Florida-based team scales back its IMSA involvement in favour of the USAC-sanctioned Porsche Sprint Challenge North America series.
Road Shagger Racing’s return to the series highlights the changes in the TCR class. Gavin Ernstone and Jon Morley will be back behind the wheel of their #61 Audi RS 3 LMS TCR. Rockwell Autosport Development’s #10 Audi is back this weekend, now driven by Bruno Colombo alongside Eric Rockwell.
Bryan Herta Autosport teams sit 1-2 in the standings, led by Daytona winners Preston Brown/Denis Dupont ahead of Sebring winners Mason Filippi/Harry Gottsacker, separated by just one position’s worth of points. Behind the two Hyundai crews are HART drivers Chad Gilsinger/Tyler Chambers in their Civic, and Precision Racing L.A.’s Ryan Eversley/Celso Neto in their Audi.
Saturday’s race begins at 12:45 PM PT (local time) with live streaming coverage on the official IMSA YouTube Channel and IMSA.TV.
Feature image © Jake Galstad / IMSA / LAT
