A Season Ends and a New One Begins

By Eddie LePine & Jack Webster
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Updated: November 26, 2024

Overall winning Cadillac. [Jack Webster Photo]

By Jack Webster & Eddie LePine

Racing these days is pretty much a year-round affair, for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season has barely ended (at Motul Petit Le Mans in October) and this week many of the teams have assembled at Daytona International Speedway for the first meeting in preparation for the 2025 season. The official IMSA test session will feature some 31 IMSA cars from a variety of teams and manufacturers, including the first US appearance of the highly anticipated Heart of Racing Aston Martin Valkyrie. Also, IMSA is welcoming back with open arms fan favorite team Meyer Shank Racing, who has secured the Acura GTP factory deal to run two cars and Wayne Taylor has been reunited with General Motors, and the team will be at the Daytona test with two GTP Cadillac prototypes. In addition, there will be other surprises, with new driver and team combos to check out for next season, with more announcements yet to come.

First things first however, and a stellar season of IMSA racing concluded with an outstanding Motul Petit Le Mans on October 11, with Cadillac Racing taking the overall win with drivers Scott Dixon, Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande in what was to be the last race for Chip Ganassi with the GM brand (his future IMSA plans are currently unknown, but there is lots of speculation floating around the paddock). The #01 Pink Cadillac (looked more purple to us), bested the #6 and #7 Porsche Penske entries, which took 2nd and 3rd. Although not winning the race, the Team Penske duo of Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr won the GTP Driver’s Championship, Porsche won the GTP Manufacturer’s title and Porsche Penske Motorsport won the GTP Team’s title.

Perhaps it was a bit of a bittersweet championship for Dane Cameron, who learned before the race that he would not be returning to drive for Porsche Penske in 2025. Dane: “It is endurance racing, and at the end of the day, it gets more aggressive as it gets more competitive. If you don’t get to the end of these things, then you don’t score points, and you don’t end up winning a championship. My mindset is willing to give up that individual moment, or whatever it may be, to make sure you get to the end of the day and you kind of win the overall war, let’s say.”

Motul Petit Le Mans marked the end of an outstanding season for Penske and the Porsche 963. It was a great season for GTP overall, as race wins were scored by Cadillac, Acura and BMW along with Porsche. With more new cars coming next year and beyond, the GTP class looks to keep going from strength to strength.

In LMP2 the #11 TDS Racing ORECA piloted by Mikkel Jensen, Hunter McElrea and Steven Thomas took the Petit win, while Inter Europol by PRI Mathiasen Motorsports took the LMP2 championship with drivers Nick Boulle and Tom Dillmann taking the driver’s title. For Dillmann, who also won the Jim Trueman Award for the top finishing LMP2 Bronze driver, the championship also means an invite to race at Le Mans next year. “I guess we have a trip to France next year. Everybody has worked so hard with Inter Europol and PR1 Motorsports to make this year happen and to do it at such a high level,” he said. “Certainly, I was paying attention to (the Trueman Award) as the (Motul Petit Le Mans) race wound down. We knew it was close and would depend on our finishing position.”

In GTDPRO, the #19 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 took the race win with drivers Franck Perera, Jordan Pepper and Mirko Bortolotti sharing the driving duties. After an eventful race, crowd favorite ‘Rexy’, the dinosaur themed Porsche 911 GT3 R of AO Racing and pilot Laurin Heinrich took the GTDPRO Championship (for teams, driver and Porsche), besting Heart of Racing’s Aston Martin by only 4 points. Laurin Heinrich after the race: “I can think of 100 situations where we could have lost one of the four points. The margins are so small. In the end, you can say that the four points came from our pole at Daytona. They came from our pole here in Petit. Some key races for sure.”

Finally, in GTD, Conquest racing’s #34 Ferrari 296 GT3 took the race win with drivers Manny Franco, Albert Costa Balboa and Cedric Hargrove sharing the driving duties. In the GTD Championship, Winward Racing and Mercedes-AMG took home the Championship, with team drivers Philip Ellis and Russell Ward sharing the driver’s title. Russell Ward after winning the championship: “We did the heavy lifting earlier this year and the first part of the season. We had some more difficult races at the end in Indy and also here (at Petit). We still kept it together. We didn’t really put a foot wrong and put the championship up.”

So, the 2024 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is now behind us, and preparations are starting for 2025. It looks to be another record setting IMSA season to come, with more new cars and drivers and more record crowds at some of the best race circuits on earth.

As always, we’ll see you at the races…

Eddie LePine & Jack Webster

Jack Webster has been shooting motorsports since the early 1970’s, covering Formula One, CanAm, F5000, TransAm, GrandAm and American Le Mans races, among others. In addition to his photography, he has also worked on racing teams, both in IMSA and IndyCar, so has a complete knowledge of the inner workings of motorsport. Both his photography and writing can be seen here on racingnation.com. Eddie LePine has been involved in motorsports for over 30 years as photographer, columnist, and driver. Eddie also is now a retired racer (well, retired unless a good ride pops up). You can usually find Eddie in the paddock area, deep in conversation with a driver.

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