Porsche Penske Motorsport has introduced the six drivers that can signify the crew within the 2026 IMSA SportsCar Championship.
Laurens Vanthoor and Kevin Estre will transfer over from Porsche’s now-defunct World Endurance Championship programme and reunite in IMSA’s GTP class, sharing the #6 Porsche 963 LMDh for the complete season.Â
The pair will likely be joined within the 5 enduros by Matt Campbell, who will transfer right into a diminished function on the crew after profitable this 12 months’s GTP title alongside Mathieu Jaminet.
Felipe Nasr will stay behind the wheel of the #7 Porsche however may have a brand new team-mate within the type of Julien Andlauer, who represented PPM as a manufacturing unit driver within the WEC this 12 months.
Laurin Heinrich has been named because the third driver for the #7 automobile after making his debut LMDh outing on this month’s WEC finale in Bahrain, the place he changed crew common Michael Christensen.
Podium: third place #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor
Photograph by: Andreas Beil
It stays unclear whether or not Porsche will add a fourth driver to every automobile for the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona in January.
Porsche’s exit from Hypercar after simply three seasons has compelled a downsizing of its LMDh driver roster.
As an alternative of getting eight full-timers throughout the 2 programmes, it would have simply 4 drivers racing the 963 for the complete season, supplemented by two further drivers for the Michelin Endurance Cup.
Notable absentees from Porsche’s 2026 line-up are Christensen and Nick Tandy. The latter made historical past at the start of this 12 months when he grew to become the primary driver to finish the unofficial sextuple crown of endurance racing’s six greatest occasions – profitable the 24-hour Le Mans, Daytona, Nurburging and Spa-Francorchamps races, in addition to Petit Le Mans and the Sebring 12 Hours outright.
Newly topped IMSA champion Jaminet can be departing, with Genesis having already introduced that he’ll transfer to its new Hypercar challenge in 2026.
Porsche and Penske dominated the 2025 IMSA season, sweeping the drivers’, groups’ and producers’ titles.
The German producer additionally scored a victory within the WEC, however ended the 12 months third within the championship, behind winner Ferrari and second-placed Toyota.
It missed out on a record-extending twentieth win at Le Mans 24 Hours as Estre, Vanthoor and Campbell completed second to the race-winning #83 Ferrari of Robert Kubica, Phil Hanson and Yifei Ye.
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