2026 could be the most successful year Will Turner has had as the founder, namesake, and owner of Turner Motorsport. His team could find itself winning three major North American sports car championships between IMSA and SRO America in the same calendar year, with two of them up for grabs this weekend.
Turner spoke to DSC during the last round at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, looking back on the season that had been. “Thinking a lot about how this year has gone, we’re just gonna keep doing what we’re doing, not changing anything up,” said the founder of BMW’s longest-tenured racing team.
“We’ve been getting good points; we’ve been solid and consistent. But we want to win,” he continued. He noted the fact that going into the weekend, his team hadn’t won in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship since August 2024 at Road America.
Then the #96 BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Patrick Gallagher and Robby Foley won at Indy, to break a two-year winless drought and turn the final showdown in Road Atlanta into a winner-take-all shootout.
On its own, it was an emotional victory for Turner Motorsport: It had been only a few weeks prior that former Turner Motorsport driver Matt Dalton passed away. Dalton was more than just an amateur driver who raced for Turner in IMSA’s pyramid: He was a backer of the team through his work at Belle Haven Investments, and a supporter of Gallagher for much of his racing career.
Framing the victory in terms of the 2026 season, it was a win that has put Turner in the window for its first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship title since 2014, the very first year of the unified era.
“In GTD, looking back through the Turner history, we’ve been doing this a long time, and I don’t think we’ve finished out of the top three in overall points in a long time,” Turner continued. “We’re pretty consistently there at the end. So let’s just stay solid and consistent, hope other teams make mistakes – and see what shakes out.”
Gallagher and Foley’s quest to win the IMSA GTD championship on Saturday is the middle leg of an incredible challenge for Turner Motorsport across three series. The day before, Turner drivers Dillon Machavern and Luca Mars will be battling to win the Michelin Pilot Challenge GS class championship in the series’ final two-hour sprint race of the season. The #95 Turner BMW M4 GT4 EVO is second in the standings.
Should things go perfectly at Road Atlanta, Turner would then head back to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the final Indianapolis 8 Hour Race. Foley and his GT World Challenge America co-driver Justin Rothberg have won the last two Pro-Am class championships, and could add a third title if they come back to win the Pro championship this year.
Turner has won championships in all three series before, but never in the same year – and it’s something that Foley is very much looking forward to over the next two weekends. “It’d be amazing,” said Foley, Turner’s top pro driver, who has come close many times but never won the GTD title in IMSA. “To win one would be amazing – but we’ll try to do all three!”
“I’m lucky to drive in all three programmes, and you always start the season with those ambitions. Over the past couple of years, we’ve been fortunate enough to win a championship in one of those programs the last three years.
“But to be in contention in all three (at the same time) is amazing. It’s just a testament to how hard everybody works. There’s a lot of crossover between programmes, so it’s great to have all that continuity within the team. And since I’ve been there, which has been a while now, there’s really not been much turnover.
“We just try to improve on little things, and I think we’ve made a major step in our performance in GTD this year with the new Evo car – and that’s crossed over to other programmes as well.”
Winning the GTD championship is easier said than done of course: Doing so will mean dethroning the reigning back-to-back champions, Winward Racing. That’s no easy task.
“We have a nemesis out there,” Turner said. “I think every GTD car has a nemesis; the #57 car has obviously won championships the last two years.
“So we know it’s going to be a fight with the #57 and the #27 (Heart of Racing Aston Martin). Again, it’s been since 2014, and we’ve been knocking at the door, but haven’t put it together.”
The competition between the two pillars of GTD is intense, but there is a mutual level of respect between Winward and Turner, who’ve raced against one another in both IMSA and SRO for the last few years, something which Foley professed in his comments to the media earlier this week.
“They’ve been super-dominant the last couple of years, and we’ve always been kind of chasing them,” Foley said of Winward.
“I think both them as a team, Mercedes as a manufacturer, their group’s been super-strong. There’s not much more to say than that.
“I’ve had different run-ins with different cars, and some different philosophies of how races are officiated. But I’ve always had good races with the #57. Light contacts here and there, incidental, but never anything crazy. And I think that’s why there’s so much respect between the two.: We always race each other hard but fair.
“I think we’ll do the same at Petit Le Mans, and the best car and team will come out ahead.”
Feature image © Jack Webster / dailysportscar.com
