With three IMSA SportsCar Championship titles and three consecutive Rolex 24 at Daytona wins, Felipe Nasr’s place among the greats of North American sports car racing is already more than secure, yet he’s still at the absolute peak of his game.
Nasr enters this year’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring as a two-time and defending overall winner. His third straight Daytona win, alongside co-drivers Julien Andlauer and Laurin Heinrich in the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, also sees him sit at the top of the GTP class championship. Tomorrow’s race, as a result, is another huge one.
“It’s another race that I love to take part in,” Nasr says of the Twelve Hours. “Such a unique personality that Sebring brings out to the championship, from the track characteristics and the fans, the way that we finish the race overnight, and how the race transitions to the night as well. It’s super cool.
“It’s one of the most, I would say, tough tracks that we have on the calendar in terms of setting up the car, technically speaking. Also, having the car reliability, parts, and everything really gets beat up in Sebring. It’s all that makes this event unique. The last time we were very successful there, and we’re coming from a dream start at Daytona.
“It’s still incredible to look back and see what we have achieved for Porsche Penske Motorsport, with three victories in a row at Daytona. And I sure want to, you know, bring up the fight for Sebring and fight for another overall win there. I love driving and winning for Roger (Penske), for Team Penske, for Porsche Penske Motorsport. It’s a unique opportunity for all of us to be heading up to Sebring again.”
Nasr’s very first North American sportscar racing start at Daytona came in 2012, as the winner of the Sunoco Daytona Challenge, when he was still a prodigious single-seater racer with big talent and big ambitions to make it to Formula One – a goal he accomplished in 2015 and 2016 with Sauber F1 Team. Nasr enjoyed a dream start to life in F1 with a fifth-place finish on debut, but only once more would he crack the top six in a Grand Prix as Sauber’s performance deteriorated over year one, and further into year two.
He came back to IMSA in 2018, first with Action Express Racing, then, in 2022, he joined Porsche ahead of the 963’s debut in 2023.
Still relatively young for a driver so accomplished, Nasr has also become a leader and mentor for Porsche Penske Motorsport, and one of the few steady presences in a programme that has undergone significant driver upheaval in the last few years.
Team Penske President Jonathan Diuguid says that when it comes to having a driver to build around – and then to maintain that strength in challenging times – they don’t get much better than Nasr.
“He often talks about the 180-degree difference between the environment (in Formula One) and the environment in sports cars,” Diuguid says. “You’re built to basically be competing with everyone within the team in Formula One, including your teammate, including the other side of the garage. Sportscars are the complete opposite of that: You have to work with other drivers in the same car. And I think Felipe has excelled in that environment.
“Even prior to joining our team, he was extremely successful. I think nothing shows that more than what happened at Daytona. Laurin wasn’t able to come to the open test (at Daytona) in November. I think the first time they met in person was at the simulator in Weissach. Felipe took that challenge on his shoulders, and was really the anchor for that group, and brought them together to where we saw how extremely strong they were in the race there at Daytona.”
In Nasr’s three Rolex 24 wins, he’s shared the car with seven different co-drivers, including Andlauer and Heinrich. Of his previous castmates, 2024 GTP co-champion Dane Cameron has left the manufacturer, Nick Tandy is no longer with the factory GTP team, and Matt Campbell is now in a part-time role in the sister #6 Penske Porsche.
Since 2023, Mathieu Jaminet, André Lotterer and Frédéric Makowiecki have left Porsche Penske for other programmes, while the team and manufacturer have left the FIA World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class after 2025, resulting in a significant restructure of the driver line-up, with only Nasr retaining his full-time role in 2026.
Nasr’s new full-season co-driver, Andlauer, has two years of experience behind the wheel of the Porsche 963, but hasn’t run full-time in IMSA – and hasn’t started more than three races in an IMSA season since 2023.
Heinrich’s win at Daytona came in just his second drive in a Porsche 963, following a rapid ascent up Porsche’s ladder through one-make racing and GT customer racing – a climb that included his 2024 IMSA GTD Pro championship as a rookie at AO Racing.
“It’s pretty nice to work with Laurin, and I can see a lot of myself when I started racing as well; that level of just trying to understand things, curiosity, and trying to be better as a driver,” Nasr says of Heinrich.
“He listens to everything that I say, or Julien says, or the engineers are saying, so that’s how you can really learn as fast as you can. I can see his potential. He’s a very talented driver. He deserves to be with us in the works team because he has proved himself as a Porsche junior. And then getting the chance to be a works driver driving for a factory team, I think that’s the ultimate goal for anyone at his age.”
Once upon a time, that was Nasr’s role as a talented newcomer to a sportscar racing team, but one that needed the right guidance to help him meet expectations. Andlauer and Endurance Cup specialist Heinrich showed that they have the talent to succeed, and Nasr is proud to play the role of veteran mentor to his two co-drivers in 2026.
“I can see myself a lot into it, when I was, let’s say, younger. Now (I’m) more to the more experienced guys, I just try to bring all my experience and pass them as much as I can. And that’s why Daytona was very successful because it really worked well between us three, the way we shared the information.
“Just listening, like, what are the critical points of the race, what are the key points, how to keep the car in one piece, minimising mistakes, so it’s phenomenal. It’s exactly what endurance is all about, because nobody wins alone in this sport. You gotta have all three members working well together. And that’s what I love about this sport. It’s that fine-tuning that brings you up to another level.”
“I expect him to be strong again in Sebring,” Diuguid adds. “He’s really been the consistency and the unchanging portion there, along with some of the engineering staff.
“But as far as the driver crew, Felipe is definitely one of the strongest team builders that I’ve worked with in auto racing.”
Qualifying and the race now beckon for Nasr and the PPM team. Through practice yesterday, Nasr set the fastest time of anyone in GTP in the second session. He’ll be hoping that, even with the BoP hand the 963s have been dealt, the team’s form continues later today in the fight for pole, and then tomorrow night, when the win is on the line.
Images courtesy of IMSA, Jack Webster, DSC
