RLL Team McLaren Drivers Esterson & Johnson to be Joined by Goethe for IMSA’s Season Finale Petit Le Mans

RLL Team McLaren
Pre-Race Notes
Motul Petit Le Mans – Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta
Round 10 of 10 in the WeatherTech Sports Car Championship – GTD PRO Class

DATE:     Thursday – Saturday, October 1-3, 2026

PRACTICE / QUALIFYING BROADCASTS:     Practice: Live on IMSA.com on Thursday from 10:40 – 12:10 p.m., 3:20 – 5:05 p.m. and 7:30 – 9:00 p.m. / Live on Peacock, IMSA.com and YouTube on Friday from 2:40 – 2:55 p.m. All times Eastern.

RACE BROADCAST:     All races can be streamed live in their entirety on NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports App with authentication or Peacock Premium. Live, flag-to-flag coverage of the race begins at 12:00 p.m. ET on Saturday with the first three hours live on network NBC starting at noon ET and subsequent hours on NBCSN from 3 p.m. ET on. Flag-to-flag streaming coverage is available in the U.S. on Peacock and internationally on the IMSA YouTube Channel.

TRACK LAYOUT:     2.54-mile, 12-turn road course
RACE LENGTH:     10 hours

2025 GTD PRO WINNER:     Dan Harper, Max Hesse and Connor De Phillippi in the No. 48 BMW M4 GT3 EVO
2025 GTD PRO POLESITTER:     Dan Harper in the No. 48 BMW M4 GT3 EVO

RLL’S TOP START / FINISH AT ROAD ATLANTA:     POLE by Edwards (2018), Krohn (2021) / 1st by Auberlen/Sims/Wittmer (2017), De Phillippi/Spengler (2020, September 6 hour race)

RLL’S PODIUMS AT ROAD ATLANTA (13):     Wins: 2017, 2020 (6 hours); 2nd Place: 2009, 2013, 2015, 2022; 3rd Place: 2011, 2012, 2018, 2019, 2020 (6 hours), 2020, 2021

RLL TEAM McLAREN’S TOP START / FINISH:     2nd at CTMP and Daytona debut / 6th at CTMP – both in 2026

NOTES & QUOTES:

RLL TEAM MCLAREN AT ROAD ATLANTA
The Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta will be the 10th event in program history for RLL Team McLaren and the season-finale for the first year of competition for the program. Full season drivers, Max Esterson and Nikita Johnson, will be joined at the race by McLaren factory driver Benji Goethe. The trio had a productive test at the track on September 2.

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 third and moved up to a second-place start at their debut at Daytona when a car ahead was penalized. In the race, the team finished 12th 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 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. Since then, the team’s top finish is sixth place at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park where Max Esterson brought the team their highest qualifying position of second place. Three races ago at Road America, the team qualified a strong fourth but with two hours to go in the six-hour race, they suffered a power steering failure shortly after Esterson set the team’s fastest lap of the race. At the previous race at IMS, the team set the third fastest times in both Practice 1 and 2 but weren’t able to show their potential in qualifying after it was cancelled due to a delay for lighting. They started ninth based on point standings and opted to gamble on pit strategy. After leading their class for 32 laps up until the final minutes of the race, they didn’t get the caution they needed and had to pit for a splash of fuel with three laps to go and finished eighth. The team has continued to gain valuable experience, which they hope to capitalize on with a strong finish in the season finale.

MAX ESTERSON ON HIS RETURN TO PETIT AFTER HIS IMSA DEBUT IN 2025
“Petit Le Mans last year was really a baptism of fire. It was my first ever IMSA race and I went straight into GTP. All things considered, it went pretty well as I was able to run in the top five for much of my first stint. It will be nice to finally return to a track where I’ve had some IMSA experience, albeit in a different class. I feel more prepared and understand how this race usually flows.
“It was frustrating to not be able to qualify in Indy. Based on how practice went, I felt like I had a good shot at starting in the top three. Regardless, the team did a great job to put us nearly in a position to win from the back of the field. The test a few weeks ago at Road Atlanta went well, but the conditions were a lot hotter than we’ll likely see in the race. The air temperature was 95F that day, but I think we still learned a bit about what we need from the car at this track. I expect us to carry on with our strong form from the past few rounds. I don’t see why it would be any other way.
“It’ll be great to have Benji with us this round since he has more experience in the McLaren than Nikita and I combined. Already at the test he seemed to get up to speed well. Road Atlanta is a super busy track already when you are on track alone. When you add 53 other cars, it becomes a huge game of traffic and risk management. You also need to consider how different the conditions are at the start versus at the end of the race at 10 pm.
“It’s been a fun season and one where we’ve built a lot of momentum despite the lack of results. We’ve had a lot of potential and I think have gone from underdogs with low expectations to now being expected to fight in the top half of the grid in every session.”

NIKITA JOHNSON ON HIS PETIT LE MANS DEBUT
Johnson, who was recently crowned the youngest INDY NXT champion on September 6 at 18 years, three months and 12 days old, is looking forward to his Petit Le Mans debut after having tested in an open-wheel car at the track many years ago.
“We had good pace at Indy, shame we didn’t get to show it in qualifying.  But we made up for it in the race. The test we did at Road Atlanta about a month ago, was very beneficial.  We learned a lot on both the car side and the track evolution.  The last time I was there before the test, was about four years ago in an open wheel car so it was good to knock the rust off. I’m excited for Benji to be joining us. It will be fun to have another teammate.
“The whole track is pretty challenging to get right, lap over lap.  But I’d have to say the tire degradation and following the track evolution is going to be the hardest part.
“My highlight of the season would probably be Daytona with getting the phone call at the last minute and having to learn on the fly!  It was pretty awesome. So far this season has been very good. Unfortunately, we don’t have to results to show but the development of the car has been great and we have been fast almost every single weekend.”

AND GOETHE MAKES THREE
Benjamin “Benji” Goethe, 23, will join Esterson and Johnson as a co-driver of the No. 59 McLaren entry at Petit Le Mans. He tested with the team on September 2 and has spent time at the team’s headquarters in Zionsville, Indiana. He’s looking forward to making his IMSA debut this weekend and bringing his knowledge as a McLaren factory driver to RLL Team McLaren.
“I actually have never, either driven the Road Atlanta track or raced in IMSA before. It’s a track that I’ve always wanted to race at and a championship that I’ve always wanted to race in.  I’ve heard and seen a lot of good things from this championship so I’m very much looking forward to finally being able to race in IMSA and then being able to race at the legendary Road Atlanta.
“This is my second year as a factory driver for McLaren. Prior to that, I was a junior with them for a few years, so I’ve got quite a lot of experience with this car. I first joined McLaren when the evo came out so I’ve been racing with this car for a few years now and have raced in a lot of championships, mainly over in Europe in GT World Challenge and also, more recently in WEC this year.  I would say I’ve gotten to know the car pretty well and hope I can bring some knowledge to the team and my teammates to try and help.
“The test a few weeks ago was a successful test, I think. It was my first time at the track so it was really important for me to get to know the track before we race there as it isn’t an easy track to learn, with quite a lot of blind corners and quite high speed.  I think it was also very important for the team to collect data and valuable information that that will be useful for the race.
“I’ve always got high expectations; I want to do well in every race we’re in. I realize it’s a very competitive championship and it’s not easy to win, but for me, that’s always the goal. I’m going in there trying to help the team get a good result as best as I can and hopefully at the end of it, a win so we’ll see.
(On the acclimation to the team:) “It’s gone it’s gone well so far. Everyone was very friendly when I first arrived. They were very helpful, getting me up to grips with everything with the team and my teammates also. It was my first time racing with Nikita and Max and even meeting them and they were very nice and very helpful. They have a lot more experience in this championship and at Road Atlanta than I do and they were helping me get up to grips with the track and everything also. It’s gone very well so far.
(On the most challenging areas of the track:) “I would probably say sector one is the most challenging area of the track as it’s very high speed and committed, and there are a lot of blind corners. There are not many tracks where I think you can replicate sector one of Road Atlanta so it’s just getting up to grips with this sector and this track.  But it went well in the test, and I think you can continue to improve over the race weekend.
(Challenges of a long race:) “Sometimes you want to push too hard too early but in an endurance race like this, it’s all about where you are in that last hour or 30 minutes of the race. So just keeping it clean up until then, not taking too much risk that will potentially affect the rest of the race and keeping a clear head is important. And keeping it so that you have a good race car at the end of the race when you really need to battle it out on track is important as 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.