IMSA WEATHERTECH SERIES
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RLL Team McLaren
Pre-Race Notes
Chevrolet Detroit SportsCar Classic – Streets of Downtown Detroit, Michigan
Round 4 of 10 in the 2026 WeatherTech Sports Car Championship – GTD PRO Class
DATE: Friday – Saturday, May 29-30, 2026
PRACTICE / QUALIFYING BROADCASTS: Practice: Live on IMSA.com on Friday from 8:00 – 9:30 a.m. ET and 11:30 – 1:30 p.m. and on Saturday from 11:10 – 11:30 a.m. ET / Live on IMSA.com on Saturday, May 30 from 4:50 – 5:05 p.m. ET
RACE BROADCAST: All races can be streamed live in their entirety on NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports App with authentication or Peacock Premium. Coverage of the race begins at 4 p.m. ET on Saturday.
TRACK LAYOUT: 1.7-mile, 9-turn temporary street course
RACE LENGTH: 2 hours, 40 minutes
2025 GTD PRO WINNER: S. Priaulx and Rockenfeller in a Ford Mustang GT3
2025 GTD PRO POLESITTER: S. Priaulx
RLL’S TOP START / FINISH AT DETROIT: INDYCAR: 1st – Graham Rahal (2017, Race 1) / 3 wins: Bobby Rahal (1992 inaugural Belle Isle event), Graham Rahal (2017, Race 1 & Race 2); IMSA: 3rd in 2025 GTP class / 5th in 2025 by Eng and Vanthoor (2 events)
NOTES & QUOTES:
RLL TEAM MCLAREN AT DETROIT
The Chevrolet Detroit SportsCar Classic will be the fourth event in program history for RLL Team McLaren and first on a street course. Full season drivers Max Esterson and Nikita Johnson are both looking forward to their debuts at this track, with Johnson running a doubleheader in IMSA and INDY NXT.
In addition to initially racing here with the INDYCAR SERIES, the team has also competed in IMSA races here in 2024 and 2025 as BMW M Team RLL. The top start came in 2025 of third place by Van der Linde and top finish is fifth place in the same year by Eng and Vanthoor.
The team’s INDYCAR history here includes one pole in 2017 by Graham Rahal. Bobby and Graham Rahal have earned a combined total of three wins for the team here. Bobby won the inaugural race on Belle Isle in 1992, and Graham is the only driver to have won both races on the same weekend, which he did in 2017. In total, the team has earned eight podiums (2nd – G. Rahal 2014, Jakes 2013 & Max Papis 2000), (3rd – G. Rahal 2015, Takuma Sato 2019) 12 top five finishes and 24 top-10’s here (chart available).
The RLL Team McLaren program is a multi-year collaboration with McLaren Automotive that saw the team’s return to IMSA’s GTD PRO class in 2026 with the McLaren GT3 EVO. The team qualified a promising second fastest at their debut at Daytona but finished 12th in the GTD PRO class after an electronics issue hindered the outcome. Qualifier Macdonald ran a double stint to open the race but once he turned the car over to Vips approaching the three-hour mark of the race, the team was forced to go to the garage due to a tire pressure monitoring system failure they had been unable to correct in the pits. The team gathered important experience in the race and took the checkered flag in 12th place.
MAX ESTERSON ON HIS MOTOR CITY DEBUT
“I’ve done a lot of preparation on my sim at home since Laguna. It’s been a fun challenge sim to learn a new track. The Detroit street course is a track with some very tight sections. The bumps especially into Turn 3 make the braking really tricky too. I’ve had a bit of experience on street courses in F3 and F2. I’ve always enjoyed them with my favorite being Macau. That said, I’ve never driven a GT car around a street course and I’m expecting a lot of action in the race this weekend.”
NIKITA JOHNSON ON COMPETING IN HIS DETROIT DOUBLEHEADER (IMSA AND INDY NXT)
Not only will Nikita be competing for the first time on the streets of Detroit. He will do it in two different series: INDY NXT and IMSA’s GTD PRO class of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. He celebrated his 18th birthday earlier this week.
“I’m extremely excited to get back in the McLaren with RLL. We’ve had little break since Laguna but I am excited to get back in at our first street race of the year. I will be my first time to race in Detroit, but I’ve been to street circuits before such as St. Pete and Arlington in INDY NXT so I’m going to try to use my experience on street circuits to be on the pace right away. I’ll be in both the INDY NXT car and the McLaren for RLL so it will be a busy weekend for me running double duty but I’m looking forward to the challenge. With limited time and this weekend being a street circuit, running both classes will help me understand the course well.”
MCLAREN’S SPORTS CAR HISTORY
McLaren made its mark in sports car racing in 1995 with the F1 GTR, writing history by winning that year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Returning to sports car racing in 2012 with the championship-winning 12C GT3, McLaren continues to be a force on the international GT scene. The current GT3 EVO has proven to be very successful, winning races in FIA World Endurance Championship, GT World Challenge Europe series and other regional and domestic series.
RLL’S SPORTS CAR HISTORY
RLL, founded in 1992 and known for its success across both open-wheel and sports car racing, has a rich history in sports car competition. The team first entered sports car racing in 2007, fielding a Porsche 997 GT3 RSR in the American Le Mans Series GT2 class with drivers Tommy Milner and Ralf Kelleners and finished fourth in the 12-race championship, highlighted by multiple podiums. The following year, the team campaigned an Aston Martin DB9 in select SCCA World Challenge events, earning a pole and runner-up finish at Road Atlanta.
From 2009 to 2025, RLL partnered with BMW Motorsport in a successful 17-year collaboration that delivered numerous race wins and championships across multiple GT platforms and culminated with a race and pole-winning program in the GTP class from 2023-2025. The team previously competed in IMSA’s GTD PRO class under the BMW M Team RLL banner in 2022 while simultaneously preparing for their two-car factory GTP program debut in 2023. During that period, RLL secured pole position at Watkins Glen and GTD PRO podium
finishes at Laguna Seca and Petit Le Mans.
