In the IMSA GTD Pro class, fans have been following a special duel between two Porsche customer teams since this season: AO Racing, the up-and-coming newcomer, against Manthey, the established expert in GT racing. Both send extraordinary racing cars to the start. Both want to win – but they are taking very different paths to do so.

Roxy drives with bared teeth, but the Grello is not impressed. It's dark in Sebring. The twelve-hour race of the IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship on the historic mogul track in Florida is a tough test for man and machine. And the second round of a duel that many fans are eagerly awaiting: AO Racing against Manthey. This season, the two Porsche customer teams will meet on the racetrack for the first time in the GTD-Pro class. And with them probably the most famous Porsche 911 GT3 R in the world – the pink Roxy in place of the dinosaur green Rexy from the AO Racing team against the yellow and green Grello of Manthey. The same race car model, but two Porsche customer teams with different approaches. Both teams have already met on the race track, at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, for example, but never with purely professional driver pairings as now in IMSA. There, the fans will now witness a top duel.

AO Racing – a success story with imagination

With the Rexy and Roxy race cars, AO Racing in North America is already where Manthey's German challengers still want to be: on pole position with the fans. The unconventional dinosaur design of the race car and its team has taken the hearts of spectators by storm. Even the numerous factory teams can only watch the successful staging in amazement: No other team has so many supporters in the IMSA paddock, nowhere else do longer queues form in front of the merchandising stands and at the autograph sessions – then people of all ages celebrate a motorsport party with the inflatable dinosaur figures.

The idea for success came about more by chance. AO Racing, founded by Phillip Jeffrey ("P. J.") Hyett and Gunnar Jeannette, looks back on a short story: IT entrepreneur Hyett from near Chicago and Florida-born racing driver Jeannette met at Porsche Track Days at the beginning of 2022. "P. J. always flew around the curves in his 911 R in a drift," Jeannette laughs. "Obviously he had little experience in handling race cars, but a lot of car control and natural talent." Shortly afterwards, Hyett asked Jeannette for travel tips before a family trip to the 24 Hours of Le Mans. "I asked back whether he would like to just watch or whether he would rather take part in a support race." The answer was clear, and the starts in the Porsche Sprint Challenge were convincing: in the very first race, P. J. finished in the top ten of his strong group of 40 cars.

The experience served as an initial spark. Now Hyett dared to climb into a 911 RSR, and the joint start with Jeannette at the finale of the FIA World Endurance Championship in Bahrain led the two to the podium. "At that time, P. J. had the idea of his own racing team – which I tried to talk him out of at first," Jeannette recalls and laughs: "Fortunately, I didn't succeed." The two Americans founded AO Racing at the end of 2022. Before the opening race in Daytona, Hyett asked his children, who were three and five years old at the time, how he should design his helmet: The son dreamed of a T-Rex motif, the daughter of a unicorn. Both wishes came true. "After Daytona, we sat together and discussed the wrapping of the car for Sebring – then P.J. suddenly said: 'Why don't we turn the race car into a dino?' I liked the idea!"

The implementation was perfect. At the next race in Sebring, the spectators looked at Rexy's unusual front end with the sharp teeth for the first time - and were thrilled by the racing car, which could have come from a Marvel comic. Since then, AO has consistently implemented the design. The theme is reflected in the riders' suits and helmets, in the overalls of the mechanics and in the equipment of the team tent. The racing car developed an independent character, the story of which Hyett and Jeannette continue to spin – with obvious pleasure. After a rear-end collision, Rexy received braces for the next race. Since winning the IMSA title in 2024, a gold tooth has flashed in the teeth of the green 911. And at the season finale at Road Atlanta, which is close to the American horror festival Halloween, the entire team and the race cars competed in black and white skeleton cladding. Gunnar Jeannette even had his private 911 GT3 (992) refined with dinosaur elements by Porsche Sonderwunsch in 2025.

Rexy has developed into a global brand. The merchandising programme leaves hardly anything to be desired, from T-shirts to model cars to stuffed animals. Even as a LEGO® Technic kit, it is on shelves worldwide. The team boss is very pleased with the development, although he emphasizes: "The competition is our top priority!" And it is very successful: In 2024 – two years after the team was founded – AO Racing secured the IMSA championship in the GTD Pro Team classification. Former Porsche Junior and current works driver Laurin Heinrich took the driver's crown with him to Germany for AO.

In the meantime, Rexy has been strengthened: Roxy, the pink sister model. "We wanted to create a second character and introduced the girl dinosaur on P. J.'s daughter's birthday," Gunnar Jeannette reveals. "It is to be used in two races per season." At Sebring, it celebrates its endurance debut in the hands of Nick Tandy, Harry King and Alessio Picariello. "After that, we'll send them to Long Beach. Roxy is going to Hollywood!"

Manthey – Perfection as a business model

What Rexy and Roxy are in North America, the Grello with its yellow and green neon look is far beyond the Nordschleife and Germany: cult. Like no other racing car, it symbolises the commitment of the Porsche customer team Manthey: to act quickly at the highest level. "We have set the bar very high," says Managing Director Nicolas Raeder, who runs Manthey together with his brother Martin. "If Grello competes somewhere, then he has to race for victory."

"If Grello competes somewhere, then he has to race for victory."Nicolas Raeder

This year, the Eifel racing team, once founded by motorsport legend Olaf Manthey, looks back on a 30-year success story. Since the takeover by the Raeder brothers and with the entry of Porsche in 2013, the team has developed into a company with four business divisions: Racing, Road Cars, Race Cars and Experience. The company grew from 40 employees to more than 350. From the very beginning, Manthey was associated with the Nordschleife and the Nürburgring Endurance Series (NLS) as well as the 24-hour race there. "We were already working at a very professional level back then," says Raeder.

In addition to various works appearances for Porsche, for example in the FIA Sports Car World Championship, the Grello was born in 2016. When the design was created, the name was quickly found – a mixture of the English words "green" and "yellow". "I had a bicycle in the color in the 1990s," explains Nicolas Raeder. Today, there are rompers in Grello design, fans want to design their cars in the same look and children send self-painted pictures to the Grello home in Meuspath near the Nürburgring. At the latest since its entry into the DTM as a customer racing team and the title win in 2023 and 2025, the Grello has also become a household name outside the Eifel.

Today, customers from all over the world queue up to get behind the wheel of Manthey's FIA Sports Car World Championship. In 2024 and 2025, the German team won the LMGT3 class at Le Mans, in which professionals and amateurs share the race cars, and also clinched the team and driver titles at the end of the year. "In the meantime, we receive so many requests that we have no chance of fulfilling them," says Nicolas Raeder. The market has evolved, customers want to buy this professionalism and race with Manthey. This season, the team is in action in the Asian Le Mans Series, the DTM, the IMSA, the NLS, the FIA WEC and the Intercontinental GT Challenge (IGTC) – together with the other divisions, there are more than 150 events a year.

How does it work? The answer is always the same: people make the racing team what it is. Whether it's company founder Olaf Manthey, who still gives valuable information as an observer, or the team at the track. "We enable our employees to reinvent themselves again and again," explains Martin Raeder. "Our engineers sit together and are constantly developing new ideas. They have a lot of freedom and live their passion." Innovations such as the "Toolchain" software are being developed. This allows a lot of vehicle data to be read in and compared. For example, what an ideal damper set-up looks like. Over the years, the team has also developed its own tire heating tents or a measuring wheel system – a measuring system that fits into a transport crate – and adapted them to its own needs. This has resulted in the "Equipment for Racing" business branch. Joining IMSA closes the circle: On the one hand, a commitment there is a new sporting challenge. On the other hand, the North American market offers great potential for the kits for Porsche road-going sports cars developed by Manthey.

Both make it to the podium

The two customer teams show that the path to success is by no means uniform. Each team writes its own story: On the one hand, there is Manthey, a traditional team, supported by decades of experience and grown know-how. On the other hand, AO Racing – a fearless newcomer that has established itself as a brand in a remarkably short time and at the same time won the IMSA title.

At Sebring, the endurance classic is now coming to an end, Manthey and AO Racing are separated by only fractions of a second. Suddenly, headlights flash from the slipstream, Grello passes Roxy and crosses the finish line at 10:10 p.m. as the winner of the GTD-Pro class – a significant success and the first of the German team in its second IMSA race. "That was a typical Manthey victory," says Klaus Bachler, who formed the Grello driver trio with Thomas Preining and Ricardo Feller. "We had no mistakes, the perfect strategy and a reliable car."

The fans can rejoice: Rexy and Roxy are thirsty for revenge. The duel between the most famous Porsche 911 GT3 R in the world is far from over.