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Porsche Penske Gains Clear GTP Lead, with LMP2, GTD PRO, GTD Wide Open
March 21, 2025
By Tony DiZinno
IMSA Wire Service
Official Points
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Team and manufacturers that star in the “36 Hours of Florida” generally position themselves well for title spoils later in the year, as the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season prepares to shift from Michelin Endurance Cup racing to the sprint portion of the schedule for the next three race weekends.
One class has an early title-contending frontrunner, while the other three are much closer. Here’s how the WeatherTech Championship standings look after the 63rd Rolex 24 At Daytona and 73rd Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring:
Grand Touring Prototype (GTP)
Win two races, score nearly maximum points. The only points flaw the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport trio of Nick Tandy, Felipe Nasr and Laurens Vanthoor has had so far in 2025 has been qualifying… where they’ve been third both races and scored 30 points instead of a maximum 35 for the Motul Pole Award. But with back-to-back 380-point weekends, the No. 7 Porsche 963 has 760 total points, only 10 shy of scoring a maximum 770 available from two races.
They lead teammates Matt Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet and Kevin Estre by 91 points. The much bigger gap goes to third-placed Colin Braun, Tom Blomqvist and Scott Dixon, who are already 173 points in arrears.
That’s in stark contrast to 2024 leaving Sebring, when Nasr, Campbell and Dane Cameron along with Jordan Taylor, Louis Deletraz and Colton Herta were tied on 706 points and third-placed Blomqvist, Jack Aitken and Pipo Derani were 106 back.
The closeness occurred in the first year of GTP, too. Aitken, Derani and Alexander Sims led after Sebring on 670 points with Deletraz, Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque 10 back.
The 91-point gap between the Porsche Penske pairs is easily catchable, but still significantly greater than the combined 10-point gap in the first two years of GTP post-Sebring.
“I know how painful it can be to have a bad Sebring after last year and be behind on points to the sister car. At least now we are on their toes,” Jaminet said. “It’s going to be an exciting year and exciting battle I guess between the two cars, as long as we can fight.”
Porsche holds a 56-point gap in the manufacturer’s standings over Acura, the only other podium-finishing manufacturer thus far. BMW has both Motul Pole Awards but sits third ahead of Cadillac.
Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2)
LMP2 has been wide open among nearly all 12 ORECA LMP2 07 cars entered. Just 100 points cover the top eight cars through two races, with only a two-point gap from first to second in the standings.
Riley’s consistent trio of Gar Robinson, Felipe Fraga and Josh Burdon have banked a second and fourth in their No. 74 ORECA to lead Rolex 24 winners Daniel Goldburg, Paul Di Resta and Rasmus Lindh in the No. 22 United Autosports USA ORECA. The Sebring 12 win for Tom Dillmann, Bijoy Garg and Jeremy Clarke in the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA vaulted that entry from 10th leaving Daytona up to third post-Sebring, fittingly only 43 points off the lead.
“It’s a nice recovery after an early DNF in Daytona,” said Dillmann, last year’s LMP2 champion. “To bounce back with the win is the best we could have done. We are now back in the contention for the title.”
Six different cars have already finished on the podium in LMP2 thus far, with the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports, No. 11 TDS Racing and No. 8 Tower Motorsports cars also having reached the rostrum.
LMP2 is on an extended break until the third round of both the full season and IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup at Watkins Glen International, June 20-22.
Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO)
The production-based GTD PRO class’ penchant for parity is off to a strong start. Four different manufacturers (Ford, Chevrolet, Porsche, BMW) have podiums to start the season and just 39 points cover the top five in the championship.
Rolex 24 winners Ford Multimatic Motorsports maintain their gap atop the standings with the trio of Christopher Mies, Frederic Vervisch and Dennis Olsen in the No. 65 Ford Mustang GT3, 17 points clear of Sebring 12 winners Laurin Heinrich, Klaus Bachler and Alessio Picariello in “Rexy,” the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R.
What will be intriguing there is watching Mies and Vervisch embark on their first full WeatherTech Championship campaign from here, after largely racing Michelin Endurance Cup-only events in IMSA. Heinrich is hungry to gain more points in pursuit of his and AO Racing’s second straight GTD PRO title.
“A win in IMSA is always big points,” he explained. “You have a 30-point gap between the winner and second place. We saw last year how tight it can be. In the end it can come down to the very last point. Getting a win is really something big.”
Podiums from the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW, No. 64 Ford and No. 3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports entries see them round out the top five.
Ford holds a scant seven-point lead in the manufacturer’s championship over BMW, with Porsche, Chevrolet and Ferrari lurking and all covered by a total of 71 points. GTD PRO skips Long Beach and resumes at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, May 9-11.
Grand Touring Daytona (GTD)
The early theme of the GTD season is “quiet success.” Winward Racing went from a roller-coaster to fourth in Daytona, followed by a come-from-behind win in Sebring with its No. 57 Mercedes-AMG GT3. Heart of Racing Team has back-to-back third places with its No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, succeeding in the shadow of the much-discussed Valkyrie Hypercar in GTP. Wright Motorsports’ No. 120 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) has a second, a pole and a fifth through two races.
Little wonder then that those three entries hold down the top spots in GTD, with the Russell Ward, Philip Ellis and Indy Dontje trio 41 points clear of the new-look Aston trio of Tom Gamble, Casper Stevenson and Zacharie Robichon and 57 ahead of Wright’s Adam Adelson, Elliott Skeer and Tom Gamble.
Also off to strong starts are Rolex 24 winners AWA with its No. 13 Corvette Z06 GT3.R in fourth, Turner Motorsport’s No. 96 BMW M4 GT3 EVO in fifth and Vasser Sullivan’s No. 12 Lexus RC F GT3 in sixth.
Mercedes-AMG holds a 40-point lead in the manufacturer’s championship over Aston Martin. Porsche, Chevrolet, Lexus and Ferrari are all within 100 points of the lead.
IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup
Official IMEC Points
IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup points through seven total race segments and two of five races comprising the 58 hours aren’t that different from the overall standings.
In GTP, the No. 7 Porsche has achieved 31 of a possible 35 points here, finishing first in five of the seven segments. That gives it a solid eight-point lead over the No. 60 Acura ARX-06.
The pair of LMP2 race winners, the No. 22 United and No. 43 Inter Europol ORECAs, are tied for this lead on 21 points each, with the No. 11 TDS and No. 04 CrowdStrike by APR ORECAs tied for third and only two points adrift.
Paul Miller Racing has prioritized scoring Michelin Endurance Cup points – as is often their tradition – through two rounds in GTD PRO. The No. 1 car’s all-American trio of Neil Verhagen, Madison Snow and Connor De Phillippi has 27 points, four ahead of the No. 48 car of Dan Harper, Max Hesse and Jesse Krohn.
Inception Racing has optimized its scoring for Michelin Endurance Cup points as well. In its first full year with Ferrari, the trio of Brendan Iribe, Frederik Schandorff and Ollie Millroy have 21 points in the No. 70 Ferrari 296 GT3. But three cars – the No. 120 Wright Porsche, No. 13 AWA Corvette and No. 21 Af Corse Ferrari – are tied for second, just one point in arrears.
Porsche (GTP, by five points over Acura), BMW (GTD PRO, by eight over Porsche) and Ferrari (GTD, by six over Porsche) lead the respective class Michelin Endurance Cup manufacturer standings.
