It’s been two months since a compelling Rolex 24 at Daytona kicked off the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Many teams and drivers haven’t spent too much of the interlude just relaxing at home, reminiscing on their Daytona success or failure. Because while spring break is this week for a lot of the young and young-at-heart, the IMSA competitors have reconvened for arguably the toughest test of them all: The 74th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.
If it’s been said before, it’s worth saying again: Sebring may be half the length of the Daytona 24 Hours, but these 12 hours are often twice as demanding as those around Daytona, because of the circuit’s demanding nature. The bumps in the road that define Sebring’s challenge make this a brutal stress test for cars, and combined with the spring heat of central Florida, it’s equally taxing on drivers.
On top of all that is the nightfall finish after running most of the race under daylight – those final few hours can turn the race completely on its head.
It’s for these reasons and many others that the fight for overall and GTP class honours will be so hotly contested. In three races since the start of the current GTP era, three different manufacturers and teams have won the Twelve Hours of Sebring: Cadillac Whelen (Action Express) in 2023, Wayne Taylor Racing with Acura in 2024, and Porsche Penske Motorsport in 2025.
Porsche will look to build upon its third straight Daytona win by going back-to-back at Sebring. The factory Penske Porsches were in control for much of Daytona, and there’s little reason to suggest that both cars, adorned in special retro-inspired liveries, won’t feature at the front this weekend. Yes, the 963s appear to have been dealt the toughest hand on the BoP front and are heavier after Daytona, but they are lighter since last year’s Twelve Hours – a race they won in a 1-2 finish, and PPM, strategically and operationally, continue to set the bar.
What you see in the Daytona result is what you get in the early championship picture: Daytona winners Felipe Nasr, Julien Andlauer, and Laurin Heinrich lead the GTP standings in their #7 Porsche 963. Nasr won in 2025 alongside Laurens Vanthoor, who’s now in the #6 Porsche with Kévin Estre and Matt Campbell.
Behind them are Cadillac Whelen’s Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber, and Frederik Vesti, who finished second at Sebring last year, and second at Daytona in January by just 1.6 seconds. Aitken and Bamber have won here before, and the red #31 Cadillac V-Series.R is on a roll going back to the end of last season.
As for the other side of the Cadillac attack, Wayne Taylor Racing had a difficult 2025 season, and Daytona didn’t yield much in the way of encouraging results. This time out, however, they have reunited 2024’s winning trio of Jordan Taylor, Louis Delètraz, and Colton Herta in the two-tone #40 car.
Acura Meyer Shank Racing should also be in contention with its two ARX-06s, as should BMW M Team WRT, which came away from its IMSA GTP debut with a third-place podium finish – not bad at all for a team that had very modest expectations.
On the one-year anniversary of the Aston Martin Valkyrie’s IMSA debut, Aston Martin THOR Team will try to bounce back from a bruising first outing at Daytona. This is a crucial moment for the THOR team’s top class programme, as for the first time it is racing at a circuit for a second time with the Valkyrie, with baseline set up data at its disposal ahead of first practice.
And don’t completely overlook Porsche privateer JDC-Miller MotorSports, who won this race five years ago, and comes to Sebring with a new look and number.
Inter Europol Competition’s Jeremy Clarke, Tom Dillmann and Bijoy Garg raced together as a trio in LMP2 for the first time at Sebring last year. The #43 ORECA 07-Gibson has to be among the favourites to go back-to-back in the class, especially when Inter Europol put two cars on the podium at Daytona (they’re back down to just the #43 car going forward).
To do it, Inter Europol will have to get through a tough field featuring CrowdStrike Racing by APR’s #04 ORECA of full-season duo, George Kurtz and Toby Sowery, armed with English hot-shoe Alex Quinn, who was the big contributor in the team’s long-awaited Rolex 24 victory, in the third chair.
Four different teams have won LMP2 at Sebring in the last four years. PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports, now backing Bryan Herta Autosport’s maiden prototype effort, won three years in a row from 2020-2022 and has assembled a strong line-up in the #52 car.
2023 class winner Tower Motorsports has made a change, bringing in Tristan Vautier to replace the departing Sébastien Bourdais as the ace driver. And 2024 winner Era Motorsport, with its refreshed crew, hopes to get out of the blocks and avoid an early catastrophe.
If the tone that the GT field set seven weeks ago in Daytona is anything to go by, Sebring is bound to be eventful, to say the least. With the top two in both classes separated by 2.2 seconds in GTD Pro and 1.3 seconds in GTD after 24 hours of racing, the margin of victory was razor-thin. Teams will have to balance their attack and keep a steady restraint to keep their noses clean this time out, with big points on the line in part two of the so-called ’36 Hours of Florida.’
All eyes will be on the world racing debut of the #9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Temerario GT3. Wrapped in the iconic Lumberjack-plaid livery, the Canadian outfit looks forward to showing off its new challenger in race format, having already battle-tested the Lamborghini around Sebring in the fall. Pfaff won Sebring in 2023, Lamborghini won in GTD twice with the Huracán GT3 EVO2, but can they win together on the Temerario’s debut?
Drivers Andrea Caldarelli, Sandy Mitchell, and Franck Perera aim to gather as much data as possible for their team and for the future of the Temerario programme as it expands globally.
Announced on Monday afternoon, AO Racing’s “Roxy,” Rexy’s alter-ego, will be gracing us with her presence this weekend for the very first time in an endurance round on the #77 car.
IMSA newcomer Harry King will be making his Sebring debut in the purple dinosaur alongside two decorated Sebring veterans, three-time winner Nick Tandy, and reigning Sebring class winner Alessio Picarello. They will look to follow up a disappointing ninth-place Daytona result with a podium finish for their Porsche 911 GT3 R as Porsche Motorsport celebrates 75 years of racing.
These are among the many contenders in a loaded 13-car GTD Pro field that includes the red-white-and-blue Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.Rs, and of course, the Daytona-winning #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO.
Reigning GTD champion #57 Winward Racing looks to carry its Daytona success into the second round of the season, going for its third consecutive victory at Sebring with its iron-clad lineup of Russell Ward, Philip Ellis, and Indy Dontje. The Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO looked, as usual, bulletproof, on the high banks at Daytona, with three AMGs finishing in the top six in GTD, and two on the podium in GTD Pro (including Winward’s part-time #48 car).
However, after somehow avoiding a race-ending catastrophe with the Magnus Racing Aston Martin with 20 minutes remaining at Daytona, Winward was reminded that it cannot let its guard down.
The #120 Wright Motorsports Porsche crew, meanwhile, is hoping to have better luck in the second round of the season after its Daytona campaign ended abruptly, not even three hours into the race.
The #83 AF Corse LMP2, which had spun and stopped on track, threw up a smoke screen and sent Adam Adelson into the wall after colliding with the prototype. Thankfully, Adelson walked away from the big incident.
Teammates Callum Ilott and Tom Sargeant look forward to their first competitive stints of the 2026 IMSA season at Sebring this weekend. The Wright outfit has had some great results at the 12 hours in previous years, finishing second in 2021, and third in 2024; they hope to unseat the Winward crew and secure the top step this weekend.
But in truth, picking out contenders has never been tougher when surveying the GTD entry. With 19 cars and a galaxy of stars on the list, you won’t want to ignore the lower end of the timing screen when the sun sets and the action heats up.
The 74th edition of the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring starts Saturday at ten past ten (10:10 AM ET), with live streaming coverage of the race available around the world (in most countries) on the official IMSA YouTube channel, and in the United States on Peacock – plus, five and a half hours of traditional TV coverage on NBCSN from 5:00 PM until the finish.
Images © Jack Webster / Dailysportscar.com, Nathan Kelly / Pfaff Motorsports
