24 Hours of Daytona 2026: Preview
- Aaron Carroll
- 2 hours ago
- 7 min read
The 2026 Sportscar racing season kicks off this weekend with its flagship event, the 24 Hours of Daytona. A total of 60 cars (11 GTPs, 13 LMP2s, 15 GTD Pros and 21 GTDs) are set to fill the banking's of the Daytona International Speedway with the roar of engines, with the green flag waving at 1:40pm EST (6:40pm GMT) on Saturday.
Entry List
GTP
The GTPs will once again headline the 60 car field, with Porsche returning as favourites, coming off the back of two consecutive wins at Daytona and two consecutive IMSA Sportscar titles. They will enter with the No.6 and the No.7 963s.
Cadillac will also return to the fray with three entries, two coming from Wayne Taylor Racing (WTR) and the final one coming from Whelen. A pair of Acuras will also come from Meyer Shank Racing (MSR), both sporting updated liveries (seen below).
A pair of BMWs return too, but this time under the WRT banner. This will be the brands first step into GTP, however they come with experience from BMW's WEC Hypercar programme. They'll hope to start their campaign off with a bang, especially after a season full of 'what could have been' with the outgoing RLL team.
The fan favourite Aston Martin Valkyrie will make its Rolex 24 debut, after sitting out last years event in favour of more development time in what was to be the cars first season of racing. JDC-Miller will also make a return with the privateer run 'Banana Boat' Porsche.
The big names here include Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Éstre and Matt Campbell all in the No.6 Porsche, with Felipe Nasr in the sister car. Kevin Magnussen will be in the No.25 BMW, with Jack Aitken in the No.31 and Colton Herta and Connor Zilisch sharing the No.40. Scott Dixon and AJ Allmendinger take to the wheel of the No.60 Acura, while Alex Palou and Kaku Ohta make star appearances in the sister No.93.
LMP2
The star-studded line-ups don't pause in GTP, with some of the names in LMP2 carrying their own weight. The 13 car class features 13 Oreca 07's from 12 different crews.
The big names begin with Sebastien Bourdais in the No.8 Tower Motorsports car, and Logan Sargeant in the No.18 Era Motorsports car. The latter plans to complete his first full season of racing since leaving Formula One, ahead of his Ford Hypercar campaign in 2027.
Elsewhere on the grid you can find names like Paul di Resta in the No.22 and Antonio Felix Da Costa in the No.43, with Christian Rasmussen in the No.99 AO Racing car.
On the provisional entry list in December, an Oreca 07 in the name of Team Tonis was set to take the green flag of this edition of the 24 hour, but a late withdrawal will see them miss the event.
With the lack of entries from teams using other cars, LMP2 has effectively become a spec class all across the world, meaning this classes' action will not be one to miss during the race on Saturday and Sunday. Expect a hotly contested and aggressive fight from all 13 entries.
GTD Pro
15 entries come from nine manufacturers in GTD Pro. BMW and Paul Miller Racing continue their partnership with the No.1 car. Corvette and Pratt Miller will run their traditional No.3 and No.4 cars, while Pfaff Racing will run with the 'plaid-borghini' again. Their line-up includes former Indy 500 polesitter, James Hinchcliffe.
Sticking with the IndyCar theme, Kyle Kirkwood will be driving the No.14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus. Ferrari come with two cars, entered by two teams. The first comes from Triarsi Competizione, which includes Ferrari Hypercar drivers and Le Mans winners James Calado and Miguel Molina. The second from Risi competizione, headlined by World Endurance Champion, Alessandro Pier Guidi.
Mercedes will up their GTD Pro presence with three entries, one from each of Winward, GetSpeed and 75 Express, the latter of which featuring Will Power and Chaz Mostert. RLL will stay on the IMSA grid after their split from the BMW GTP program, with a McLaren 720s GT3.
Multimatic will continue to run a pair of Ford Mustangs in the class, while AO Racing return with 'Rexy' the fan favourite dinosaur liveried Porsche. The other Porsche will be the No.911 car run by Manthey, with the line-up featuring reigning and former DTM champions Ayhancan Güven and Thomas Preining, who are joined by Ricardo Feller and Klaus Bachler.
GTD
The biggest of the four classes is the GTD class, with a total of 21 entries. The cars themselves are the same GT3 spec as the GTD Pro class, however they are considered a separate class due to the FIA grading level of each of the drivers. GTD will be treated as it's own class during class splits (e.g setting the grid and during safety cars).
There'll be just one Lexus RC F in the field, in what will be the cars final season, with the new Toyota GT3 rolling out for 2027. The other American brands, Corvette and Ford, will have three (No.13, No.36 and No.81) and two (No.16 and No.66) entries respectively.
There'll be a trio of Aston Martin's taking on the banks too, the No.19, No.27 and No.44. Ferrari will be represented by four cars in GTD, the No.21, No.023 (number not to be confused with the No.23 Aston Martin GTP), No.34 and No.70.
Porsche will have four entries, similar to their Italian rivals, No.28, No.120, No.123 and No.912. The No.912 car will be a Manthey 1st Phorm car, the reigning WEC champions. Lamborghini and BMW will each be represented by just one car each, the No.45 and No.96 respectively.
Finally, Mercedes will have two runners in the race. The reigning IMSA champions, the No.57 Winward car will be joined on the grid by the No.80 Lone Star Racing Merc.
There is talent, both tapped and untapped in the GTD field, and with over 20 entries, a win could come from any one of them come Sunday.
The track
Daytona is well known around the world for it's tri-oval loop, with 31 degrees of banking. But every January, the world's quickest sportscars pull off the tri-oval and into the infield for the 24 hours.
The start/finish line still sits on the 18 degree banked tri-oval corner. Instead of continuing straight ahead though, driver will pull all the way up to the right wall, setting them up with an optimal braking for turn 1.
The braking zone is tricky, as drivers turn and brake at the same time into the left handed hairpin. Then it's a very quick, flat out right left sequence, before drivers bring the car back over to the left in preparation for turn 4.
Turn 4 is known as the first of two 'Horseshoes'. It's a slow right handed hairpin, with a crucial exit. Once the drivers find traction though, it's flat out on the short run down to and through the flat out turn 5 'dogleg'. Getting the line right here is imperative, as it's quickly back onto the brakes for the second horseshoe.
Another slow right handed hairpin, with a tricky exit. Then it's another short blast to turn 6, which turns you 90 degrees to the left and back out onto the banking. Drivers will be flat out through oval turns 1 and 2, slipstreaming each other with the GTP's comfortably clearing 300km/h (186mph).
Once the banking flattens, and the drivers barrel down the back stretch, they'll have to pick their braking point into the Le Mans chicane. This chicane is very tight, with rough kerbs that punish the drivers who take a little too much speed on entry. Drivers then pull back onto the oval for oval turns 3 and 4, before coming back around to the start/finish line.
For the GTP's, a good lap time will sit in and around a low 1:34, with LMP2's expected in the 1:38's or 1:39's. The GT's will be further afield with lap times around a 1:45/1:46.
Schedule
With the ROAR testing being completed just last weekend, drivers will only have one 90 minute free practice session on Thursday at 10:05 local time (15:05 GMT) before Qualifying for the race at 14:10 (19:10 GMT).
Then engineers and drivers will turn to full race preparations during night practice at 18:15 (23:15 GMT) and FP3 at 11:05 (16:05 GMT) on Friday morning. That will be it then for on track running in terms of the Sportscar Championship runners until the green flag falls at 13:40 (18:40) on Saturday afternoon.
Those at the track, and those watching on IMSA's YouTube channel can also enjoy action from the Michelin Pilot Challenge and the Mazda MX-5 Cup.
Weather
Typical Florida humidity is expected for race day, up around 80%. Temperatures throughout the daytime hours of the race will peak in the mid 20's Celsius, while night-time temperatures will be more around 18 degrees.
Thursday and Friday will look quite similar, albeit a few degrees cooler. The winds will be strongest on Saturday, at 21km/h, however nothing too strong for the drivers to contend with.
DIVEBOMB's ones to watch
With 60 cars on the grid, DIVEBOMB's Sportscars team has selected one car in each class which we think fans should keep an eye on throughout the weekend.
GTP: No.93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura - van der Zande, Yelloly, Palou, Ohta
LMP2: No.18 Era Motorsports - Rao, Habsburg, Roe, Sargeant
GTD Pro: No.1 Paul Miller Racing BMW - Verhagen, De Phillippi, Hesse, Harper
GTD: No.27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin - Gamble, Barrichello, Robichon, Drudi
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