Michelin Endurance Cup adds new dimension to IMSA points battle

Depending on your point of view, the Michelin Endurance Cup is either a sideshow to the overall IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, or the main event. For some, winning the IMEC is a consolation prize if they miss out on the overall title. For others, it’s just as important, and sometimes even more so.

For the teams that only compete in endurance events, the Michelin Endurance Cup is indeed the only one, and there are many teams that focus on events that last six hours or more, such as Iron Lynx, Risi Competizione, Cetilar Racing, Magnus Racing and others. Apart from competing in the full season, the IMEC is the only championship that matters.

This year’s IMEC could be more important, as it now consists of five races compared to the four in recent years. The change of this weekend’s TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to a six-hour race, rather than last year’s 2h40m sprint, has increased the number of endurance events and perhaps the prestige of winning the title.

Manufacturers certainly love to brag about the Michelin Endurance Cup championships as a way to demonstrate the durability of their cars. In 2023, Cadillac seemed to be putting as much emphasis on winning the IMEC as the overall championship with Whelen Cadillac Racing in the first season of the new era of GTP.

The #31 team of Jack Aitken, Pipo Derani and Tom Blomqvist sits second in the 2024 IMEC points in GTP with a shot at the title, although the team has no real shot at the overall championship this year with two races remaining. The IMEC is perhaps the team’s only bragging rights for 2024.

“We’re definitely within reach, so we’ve got one eye on it,” Aitken said. “We want to win races, not just halfway. It’s a question of balance. If we get to Petit Le Mans, I think one of the points is quite close to the end, within a couple of hours. Then you really have to ask yourself if it’s worth it, if you really want to compromise yourself that much, if you have the time to recover. We’ll take it if we can, absolutely. It’s a championship and we want to win it.”

For those unfamiliar with the Michelin Endurance Cup and how it is scored, each endurance race is divided into segments: two for six-hour races, three for the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring and Motul Petit Le Mans, and four for the Rolex 24 At Daytona. At the end of each segment, the class leader is awarded five points, second place gets four, and third place gets three. Every other competitor is awarded two, regardless of whether or not their team completes the segment. For example, Era Motorsports is second with one point in LMP2 after winning Daytona and Sebring, but the team also scored two points for both segments in the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, despite being eliminated from the race on the first lap.

The fact that IMEC points are scored in the middle of a six-hour race, and after four and eight hours in the ten-hour Motul Petit Le Mans, illustrates the balance at play. A team that puts itself in a position to score maximum IMEC points during the race could jeopardize the strategy needed for victory. Mike Skeen, Mikael Grenier and Kenton Koch won the 2023 IMEC GTD title for Korthoff Preston Motorsports and have a chance to repeat that feat this year. However, having won the title before, the team would like to take more race wins.

“We did it last year, and since we’re not really in the championship, I think the next best thing is to try to win the endurance cup,” Koch explained. “But we also want to win some races, so we’ll see how we do that in the last few races; I think we’re still debating a bit about which focus we want to take. You can sacrifice your strategy for one over the other. Obviously you want to do both, and that’s the goal, but if we have to make a decision, that’s what we have to talk about.”

The final two races of the 2024 season are endurance events with a total of five segments. Here is how the IMEC points compare after three races and nine segments for each class:

In the GTP, Daytona winner and overall leader Porsche Penske Motorsports No. 7 (Dane Cameron and Felipe Nasr) leads with 33 points, compared to 28 for Whelen Cadillac Racing. The No. 01 Cadillac Racing team and the No. 6 PPM team are tied for third with 26 points.

LMP2, as in GTP, the overall leader also leads the IMEC – Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports with 29 points. This is despite the fact that the team’s only win came in a sprint race for Nick Boulle and Tom Dillmann. The team in second place overall, Riley Motorsports, is nowhere in the IMEC. Instead, Daytona and Sebring winners Era Motorsport with Ryan Dalziel, Dwight Merriman and Connor Zilisch are tied for second with 28 with CrowdStrike Racing by APR, although the latter is not expected to return this season and is definitely out for Indy. That effectively leaves the No. 11 TDS Racing team in third with 25.

The GTD PRO IMEC standings are also topped by a team that has only won a sprint race: Paul Miller Racing. Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow and Neil Verhagen lead the duo of Risi Competizione, Daniel Serra and Davide Rigon, with 30 points to 28. Risi is an IMEC-only team, while PMR has competed all season and is third in the overall points. The number 3 Corvette Racing team is third on 25. The overall championship-leading AO Racing is in a three-way tie for fourth on 23.

Winward Racing has won every endurance race in GTD so far, plus the sprint at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, so naturally leads both championships by a considerable margin. Russell Ward and Philip Ellis, along with endurance newcomer Indy Dontje, have 31 IMEC points to Inception Racing’s 28. Korthoff Preston Motorsports is third with 26 and leads Triarsi Competizione by two points.