A season highlight right at the beginning: The 64th running of the 24 Hours of Daytona will take place on January 24/25, 2026 at the Daytona International Speedway in the US state of Florida. A total of three Porsche 963s will be on the grid in the top GTP class of the IMSA Championship: in addition to the two hybrid prototypes from Porsche Penske Motorsport, the No. 85 car of the JDC-Miller MotorSports customer team will also be on the grid.

"We had a perfect run in the IMSA series in the past two years. We want to continue this 75 years after a Porsche's first class victory at Le Mans and the 60th birthday of our partner Team Penske," explains Thomas Laudenbach, Vice President Porsche Motorsport. "We are by no means resting on our laurels. Together with our partners, we are continuously working on further detail improvements. We have prepared intensively and are looking forward to an exciting start to the season with the Porsche 963. Our goals are clear: We want the third Daytona victory in a row and more titles!"

Qualifying

Porsche Penske Motorsport’s No. 7 Porsche 963 and Felipe Nasr aim for their third straight win together at the Rolex 24 and will roll off from P3. Nasr shares his car with new teammates Julien Andlauer and Laurin Heinrich.

In 5th place the No. 6 Porsche Penske car, which has a new full-season lineup of Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor joined by last year’s GTP champion Matt Campbell.

GTP

P4: #7 Porsche Penske

P6: #6 Porsche Penske

P8: #85 JDC-Miller Porsche

GTD Pro

P14: #911 Manthey Porsche

P15: #77 AO Racing Porsche

GTD

P10: #120 Wright Porsche

P18: #912 Manthey Porsche

P19: #123 Muehlner Motorsport

P20: #28 RS1 Porsche

New driver line-up at Porsche Penske Motorsport

At the wheel of the No. 6 Porsche 963, the two works drivers Kévin Estre from France and Laurens Vanthoor from Belgium will take turns throughout the season. In Daytona, the duo will be supported by reigning IMSA champion Matt Campbell from Australia. The No. 7 sister car will be driven by Felipe Nasr from Brazil and Frenchman Julien Andlauer. At the season opener, the new Porsche works driver Laurin Heinrich from Germany completes the line-up.

The works team's two Porsche 963s will compete in the 2026 season with further aerodynamic improvements. The engineers at Porsche Motorsport are thus giving the "Made in Flacht" hybrid prototype more consistent behaviour on different race tracks. The progress was already evident during the three-day tests last weekend (16-18 January): In all six "Roar" sessions, the Porsche 963s were in the front field, often even in first place on the timesheets.

Porsche customer teams compete in three categories

At the IMSA debut of Manthey's No. 911 car in the well-known 'Grello' design, Austrian Klaus Bachler and Riccardo Feller from Switzerland will be behind the wheel together with two DTM champions: reigning champion Ayhancan Güven from Turkey and Austrian Thomas Preining, champion in the 2023 season.

All Porsche vehicles and drivers at a glance

GTP class (Porsche 963):
Porsche Penske Motorsport #6: Kévin Estre (FRA) / Laurens Vanthoor (BEL) / Matt Campbell (AUS)
Porsche Penske Motorsport #7: Julien Andlauer (FRA) / Felipe Nasr (BRA) / Laurin Heinrich (DEU)
JDC-Miller MotorSports #85: Nico Pino (CHL) / Tijmen van der Helm (NLD) / Kaylen Frederick (USA)

GTD-Pro class (Porsche 911 GT3 R):
AO Racing #77: Harry King (GBR) / Nick Tandy (GBR) / Alessio Picariello (BEL)
Manthey #911: Klaus Bachler (AUT) / Ricardo Feller (CHE) / Thomas Preining (AUT) / Ayhancan Güven (TUR)

GTD class (Porsche 911 GT3 R):
RS1 #28: Jan Heylen (BEL) / Eric Zitza (USA) / Dillon Machavern (USA) / Sven Müller (DEU)
Wright Motorsports #120: Adam Adelson (USA) / Elliott Skeer (USA) / Tom Sargent (AUS) / Callum Ilott (GBR)
Muehlner Motorsports #123: Dave Musial Sr. (USA) / Dave Musial Jr. (USA) / Peter Ludwig (USA) / Ryan Yardley (NZL)
Manthey 1st Phorm #912: Ryan Hardwick (USA) / Richard Lietz (AUT) / Morris Schuring (NLD) / Riccardo Pera (ITA)

Saturday’s 64th Rolex 24 At Daytona goes green at 1:40 p.m. ET. Live coverage starts on network NBC at 1:30 ET, with full flag-to-flag streaming on Peacock, IMSA.TV and IMSA’s Official YouTube channel internationally.