All Andretti Global IndyCar Series competitors will compete in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The same is true for Chip Ganassi Racing’s three IndyCar drivers, along with all-stars from other racing series and disciplines waiting to descend on Daytona International Raceway for IMSA’s grand season opener later this month.
WeatherTech SportsCar Championship fans have come to expect a variety of fun full-time teams and drivers to start the year. We also expect to see an interesting mix of solo drivers and part-time guest drivers asking for photos and autographs. Ahead of 24 tests spread across the Roar (January 16-18) and a major week of action (January 22-25), IMSA’s offerings across four classes are not to disappoint.
Andretti Global’s presence at the Rolex 24 is an example of talent allocation, as Kyle Kirkwood (Vasser Sullivan Lexus GTD Pro), Will Power (75 Express Mercedes-AMG GTD) and Marcus Ericsson (Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini GTD) are on three different teams.
It’s a decidedly strange situation as the trio are not in IMSA GTP (the top class of the series where IndyCar’s top drivers are usually populated), but in the entry-level Pro-Am GT category, along with Power, who will debut at the Rolex 24, and Ericsson, who competed in DPi/GTP in 2022 and 2024.
For All-Pro GT class Kirkwood, whose relationships with 1996 IndyCar champion Jimmy Vasser and businessman James Sullivan predate his IndyCar career, he has attracted interest from IMSA prototype teams, but his return to the factory Lexus program in 2026, his seventh season in enduro action, is by choice.
The fourth member of the Andretti Global Team is Colton Herta (Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing GTP), who is no longer part of the IndyCar program but will likely return at the Indianapolis 500. Next season will be spent racing in F2 and test driving for the Cadillac F1 team, led by Andretti Global and TWG Motorsports, which owns Cadillac WTR. GTP initiatives. Of the Andretti and TWG quartet, Herta has the most track record at the Rolex 24, winning in 2019 (BMW M8 GTE GTLM) and 2022 (Dragonspeed LMP2).
With Herta factored into his eighth start, he and his stablemates will be eligible for GTD, GTD Pro and GTP, leaving LMP2 the only one without a representative. However, the Pro-Am Prototype class has many familiar names on the entry list.
Ed Carpenter Racing’s first-time IndyCar race winner Christian Rasmussen returns to LMP2 (AO Racing) with the defending series champions and aims to add another Rolex 24 class victory to his 2024 win (Ella Motorsports). Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel has won two IMSA enduros at Watkins Glen and Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, and has finished on the Rolex 24 podium since 2023, but he has yet to win in the Rolex 24 class and will have another shot at LMP2 (Europol Interpol competition).
This will be Rasmussen’s fifth Rolex 24 start in the LMP2 class and his second with AO Racing. Brandon Badrawi/IMSA
Chip Ganassi Racing also has a presence in LMP2 with Kiffin Simpson (Tower Motorsports) and new Indy NXT signee James Law (Era Motorsports). This includes four-time Champ Car champion Sebastian Bourdais (Tower Motorsports), recent Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing IndyCar driver Pietro Fittipaldi (Pratt Miller Motorsports) and HMD Motors. Add in his younger brother Enzo (Pratt-Miller Motorsport), who has signed with the Motorsports Indy NXT team, and former Williams F1 driver Logan Sargent (Ella Motorsport), and there is no shortage of veteran and up-and-coming talent in LMP2. Track the race for 24 hours.
Returning to GTP, Ganassi’s deep ties to Honda are evident in his use of defending IndyCar champion and Indy 500 winner Alex Palou and six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon. (main image) We are affiliated with our affiliate IndyCar program (Acura Meyer Shank Racing).
Palou, who has won four IndyCar titles, has started three Rolex 24 races with a best finish of seventh, while Dixon has the most experience with 22 starts. He is also the most successful of all the stars, with wins in 2006 (Riley-Lexus Daytona Prototype), 2015 (Riley-Ford DP Prototype), 2018 (Ford GT GTLM), and 2020 (Cadillac DPi).
They will be joined by open wheel and stock car ace AJ Allmendinger of the Kaulig Racing NASCAR Cup Series team. He won the Rolex 24 with MSR in 2012 and will share the No. 60 Acura with Dixon.
There were hopes that new NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Jesse Love would attempt his first Rolex 24, but those plans fell through, but his 2025 main rival, Trackhouse Racing’s Connor Girish, has climbed the IMSA ladder in the Mazda MX-5 Cup Series and won the LMP2 class of the 2024 Rolex 24 before joining IMSA He will make his GTP debut (Action Express Racing Cadillac) (era name). motorsports). Girisch will have Mercedes F1 reserve driver Frédéric Vesti as his teammate in the AXR Cadillac. Vesti won two enduro races as a GTP team in 2025, following Daytona.
Last year, Girish shared a Corvette Z06 GT3 at Daytona with Robert Wickens and Trackhouse teammate Shane van Gisbergen (DXDT Racing). He steps up to GTP and while Van Gisbergen is taking a year off from the Rolex 24, Wickens is back and has Team Penske IndyCar frontrunner Scott McLaughlin as his co-driver.
F1 veteran Kevin Magnussen has shifted his focus to factory prototype racing with BMW, returning to the Rolex 24 as part of the German brand’s revised GTP activities (BMW M Team WRT). Magnussen’s former Haas F1 teammate Romain Grosjean, who last competed at Daytona in the Lamborghini GTP program that ended during the off-season, impressed enough Bill Riley, whose Riley Motorsports campaigned Lamborghini cars, to bring Grosjean on board to complete a new initiative (Myers Riley Motorsports Ford Mustang GTD).
More All-Stars could be confirmed, but the last one to stand out is PREMA Racing IndyCar driver Callum Ilott (Light Motorsport Porsche GTD). He competed in the Rolex 24 for the first time last year with LMP2 (Pratt Miller Motorsports) and will compete in the lights for much of the WeatherTech Championship season.
