IMSA Laguna Seca’s racing was as good as its throwback liveries

The IMSA race at Laguna Seca — maybe any race at Laguna Seca — can be a bit volatile. When it’s bad, it’s bad — and not bad in the boring way, bad in the dangerous way. However, when it’s good, it reminds you why this track is historic and why we’re so lucky it’s still here.

IMSA makes an effort to reinforce that historic element by making this the championship’s “throwback race,” when teams bring one-off liveries that harken back to the greatest liveries of a particular make, team, or sponsor, connecting the race on track today with the long legacy of motor racing. For whatever reason, both in sports cars and in NASCAR, people have been turning sour on this practice this year. I can’t even articulate what those people’s objection is, beyond just not wanting to have to learn to recognize a different scheme on track. I couldn’t disagree more strenuously. Racing lineages are core to what racing is, and every chance to honor a lineage is an access point for people to go deeper into the sport.

The 2026 IMSA Laguna Seca liveries were unimpeachable no matter what you think about the practice in general, though. Top of the pile was clearly the Porsche Penske Motorsport Apple Computer six-colors livery, which was made famous on a Porsche 935 that raced at the 1980 24 Hours of Le Mans. As far as I’m concerned, the 963 is now a canonical participant in that livery, Apple is back in the motorsports game, and the rainbow colors are once again Apple’s official brand colors, so they are required to make all their devices in each of those colors now. You’re welcome, John Ternus.

In very close second place was my hometown GTD Pro team, Paul Miller Racing, which ran a tribute to the 1975 BMW 3.0 CSL that won Sebring. The M4 GT3 EVO looked outrageously cool with those stripes.

Honorable mention goes to AO Racing’s “Sketchy” livery, which is a tribute to the original hand-drawn concepts for Rexy. It’s a bit self-important to do a throwback to your current car, I feel, but hey, Rexy has probably earned icon status at this point. It’s the only sports car my kids know the name of, anyway.

There was some bad news prior to the race: The DXDT Racing transporter caught fire en route, and this was not one of those happy-ending stories when the team is able to move heaven and earth to make the race. The #36 was taken out of contention, depriving Robert Wickens of one of his starts this year, which sucks.

As for things that happened on track, the Michelin Pilot Challenge series had its last race at Laguna for the foreseeable future, and it went out in storybook fashion. The #95 Turner Motorsport BMW of Luca Mars and Dillon Machavern got the team its first win in Monterey since 2009. They started eighth and raced up to third, then went to the front with good pitstop timing and defended the position the rest of the way. In TCR, Bryan Herta Autosport finished 1-2, which happens.

In the WeatherTech series, Cadillac qualified 1-2-3 with the Wayne Taylor #40 on pole. I knew better than to get excited about the race, though. In GTD Pro, the #14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 — which is an entire throwback car, even with its usual livery — poled it, and they’ve traditionally struggled at Laguna Seca. This team is really giving this car a hell of a sendoff before it’s replaced by the upcoming GR GT.

The race was awesome, unless you are exclusively a fan of Cadillac Racing. The Cadillac that was there at the end was the #31 — obviously, not the WTR cars — with Earl Bamber at the helm, but it was clear as the end drew near that Laurin Heinrich was catching him. Now, you may not be overly surprised to hear that, but what if I told you that he was not driving the Penske 963 but in fact the JDC-Miller MotorSports 963? Yes, Heinrich was driving last year’s car for a privateer team, and on the last lap, he caught and passed Bamber and won! It was the first privateer victory of the LMDh era, and I hope it augurs a stout second chapter for the category as factory interest begins to falter. Heinrich won’t be driving the privateer cars, though; he was promoted to full-time at Penske immediately after this performance.

The GTD Pro class was won by the #65 Mustang of Frederic Vervisch and Christopher Mies. It was a big comeback from a puncture, and it vaulted the #65 back into championship contention.