Porsche driver Laurin Heinrich has no regrets over how his first full season of racing in IMSA’s premier class has gone. Sure, he comes into Saturday’s Motul Petit Le Mans needing a small miracle to overtake GTP championship rival Jack Aitken in the standings and win the title as a rookie. In fact, his title hopes could be extinguished Friday during qualifying.
But no matter the outcome of Saturday’s race, Heinrich’s first season has been an overwhelming success beyond even his expectations.
“I could have not envisioned or imagined being in this situation right now,” Heinrich said leading into the race. “And now, well, we are here!
“Who would have thought, driving three different cars, six podiums out of eight races so far is great. I’ve won Daytona and Sebring, which is a dream come true. Thinking back to the start of the year where I thought I would only do the long races, so far to win two is something crazy, and I’m really thankful for the chance.
“I think I have developed a lot in the process of it: I’ve become a better driver, a more complete driver, getting all this experience from prototype racing.
“147 points behind is not easy to catch up, but we all know at Motul Petit Le Mans, anything can happen in that race – and I won’t give up until the chequered flag falls.”
Henrich’s first season in GTP was only meant to consist of three races with Porsche Penske Motorsport. But then Heinrich won the Rolex 24 At Daytona and Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in succession, and Porsche soon realised it couldn’t just make its rising star wait until October to drive its 963 again, and not long after, a deal was announced to put Heinrich in customer team JDC-Miller MotorSports’ 2025-spec car for the remaining rounds.
It was with JDC-Miller that the young German driver’s legend grew even more, thanks to a brilliant final-lap overtake at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca: One which gave the team a memorable first win in GTP, and improbably gave Heinrich the lead in the GTP Drivers’ championship. Podium finishes at Watkins Glen – where he was never meant to race at first – and Road America made it impossible to leave him out of championship discussions.
“For sure, I compete to win. This IMSA title, it developed throughout the year as my primary goal, and I’m living every day for that,” Heinrich said. “The first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about going to bed at night is exactly that. It would mean a lot.
“But still, finishing second is a great result, and I would still look back happily and proud of the year we’ve done at this point. I want to thank Porsche for giving me this opportunity to give me the best opportunities to fight for this title. It really means a lot to me that the manufacturer respects the drivers’ championship, even if we’re just fighting on our own in this title fight.”
Even outside of IMSA, Heinrich has had an amazing 2026. He made his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut in June and helped CrowdStrike Racing by APR dominate the LMP2 Pro/Am class. Last month, he reunited with his old GTD Pro team AO Racing (in partnership with Absolute Racing) and led them to a dominant win in the Intercontinental GT Challenge Suzuka 1000km. It’s the sort of season that a young driver dreams of.
Yet there’s still more history that Heinrich can make this weekend, alongside his fellow Daytona and Sebring winners Felipe Nasr and Julien Andlauer.
That’s because no drivers have ever claimed overall wins at the Daytona 24 Hours, the 12 Hours of Sebring, and Petit Le Mans in the same year, in the same team. If the #7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 of Nasr, Andlauer, and Heinrich wins Saturday, they’d complete an unprecedented Triple Crown in IMSA. “It would be a tremendous result, especially considering it’s my first year in GTP,” Heinrich said of the potential history in the making.
“To already have the opportunity to do that within the same year is something special. We were already speaking about it; we want to go out and win that race because it would be a tremendous end to a still-successful year. The #7 is not in the championship fight any more, so for sure, the goal of our group is just to go out there and win the race.”
“If I look back at our endurance races, especially Daytona and Sebring, we’ve done an incredible job as a trio with Felipe and Julian. I’m looking forward to be back with these two guys and have the unique chance to win all three big races, all together, because that’s how we started.”
Those wins at Daytona and Sebring are why the #7 Porsche Penske team has all but completed this year’s set of Michelin Endurance Cup titles in GTP. Heinrich should win the Drivers’ cup when the #7 car rolls off on Saturday via his results with JDC-Miller at Watkins Glen and Road America. But his co-driver Andlauer’s sudden back issue on the morning of the race last year means that’s only 99 percent certain, instead of 100.
And how fitting that it comes down to Road Atlanta in the end: It’s where Heinrich first raced in the United States during the last round of the 2022 Porsche Carrera Cup North America series, it’s where he and AO Racing held on to clinch the 2024 IMSA GTD Pro title in his first full season Stateside, and last year, it’s where he first tested the Porsche 963 in advance of the year to come.
What a year it’s been.
Feature image © Porsche
