RLL Team McLaren – Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Advance

RLL Team McLaren

Pre-Race Notes

Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring

Sebring International Raceway, Sebring, Florida

Round 2 of 10 in the 2026 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship – GTD PRO Class

DATE: Thursday – Saturday, March 19-21, 2026

PRACTICE / QUALIFYING BROADCASTS: Practice: Live on IMSA.com on Thursday from 10:05-11:35 a.m. ET, 4:15-5:45 p.m. and 7:45-9:15 p.m. / Live on IMSA.com on Friday, March 20 from 11:45 – 12:00 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 10 a.m. ET on Saturday.

TRACK LAYOUT: 3.74-mile, 17-turn road course

RACE LENGTH: 12 hours

RLL’S TOP START / FINISH AT SEBRING: 1st by Auberlin (2016; GTLM), De Phillippe (’18; GTLM), Vanthoor (’25; GTP) / 1st in 2011 (Hand/Mueller/Priaulx) and 2012 (Hand/Mueller/Summerton) – both GTLM

NOTES & QUOTES:

RLL TEAM MCLAREN TO COMPETE IN ITS FIRST 12 HOURS OF SEBRING

The 74th Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring will be the second event in program history for RLL Team McLaren. Full-season GTD PRO drivers Max Esterson and Nikita Johnson will be joined by Dean MacDonald who also competed for the team in the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

The 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. The team had a successful test at Sebring February 18-19 and is looking forward to Round 2 of IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition.

MAX ESTERSON ON HIS 12 HOURS OF SEBRING DEBUT

“I think we started the test at Sebring in a much better place than where we started at Daytona. We got a through a good program, and we should have a good car for the race. Sebring is a very rewarding track to drive but it’s also really challenging, especially for the car. The bumps in T1 and T17 are super aggressive, and overall, I think a lot of care will need to be taken to get the car to the end of the race. I’ve only raced at Sebring once in 2020 in a Formula Ford. That said, it’s a track I’ve driven so much on iRacing over the last 10 years. I’ve been to the 12 Hours a few times to watch, so I’m excited to have a go. Despite the early issue we had at Daytona that set us back quite a few laps, we ran a pretty clean race the rest of way. There are a few areas we identified that could be improved, so hopefully we can keep building on what we learned.”

NIKITA JOHNSON ON COMPETING IN THE 12-HOUR RACE

“⁠Most of my experience at Sebring is on the short course in an F4 open wheel car but I have been to a few 12-hour races as a spectator. The test went very well, and I feel comfortable with the car. The toughest part of the race is when the sun is going down. ⁠I have a much better feel for the car, my team, and my co-drivers and am ready for our second race together.”

MCLAREN FACTORY DRIVER, DEAN MACDONALD, ON HIS SEBRING DEBUT

“The test went well, it was my first time at Sebring so I had a lot of learning to do myself and getting familiar with the circuit, but it went smoothly. Obviously, we want to carry the performance that we showed at Daytona into Sebring and the car was in a nice window from the beginning of the test so I’m confident we can show some strong pace in qualifying and the race.

“I found the most challenging was the last corner with how extreme the bumps are and also the different surface changes throughout the lap so adapting from 1 corner to the next. We don’t have the same luxury as we did at Daytona with the amount of space between traffic so managing that well in the race will be important especially while the prototypes come past us so we will need to make sure that we make the correct and sensible decisions as drivers.

“I don’t have much history at Sebring at all. My first time there was the two-day test we did so I’m looking forward to going back for the race. I think we all learned a massive amount from Daytona, not only from a team as it was the first race weekend with the McLaren but from drivers as well. It definitely showed as I felt we sort of hit the ground running more at Sebring test. The car ran well for the 24-hour race so that definitely fills us with some confidence going into a 12-hour race but we also know that Sebring provides challenges that Daytona didn’t. All in all, I believe we are in a good place for Sebring especially after the test we did there.”

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.