RLL Team McLaren RACE ADVANCE – Michelin GT Challenge at VIRginia Raceway

RLL Team McLaren
Pre-Race Notes
Michelin GT Challenge at VIRginia Raceway – VIR
Round 8 of 10 in the 2026 WeatherTech Sports Car Championship – GTD PRO class

DATE:     Friday – Sunday, August 21-23, 2026

PRACTICE / QUALIFYING BROADCASTS:     Practice: Live on IMSA.com on Friday from 3:10 – 4:40 p.m. ET and on Saturday from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. ET / Live on Peacock, IMSA.com and YouTube on Saturday from 5:10 – 5:25 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 12:00 p.m. ET on Sunday. International viewers can watch the full race live on the IMSA YouTube channel.

TRACK LAYOUT:     3.27-mile, 17-turn permanent road course
RACE LENGTH:     2 hours 40 minutes

2025 GTD PRO WINNER:     Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims in a Chevrolet Corvette Z06
2025 GTD PRO POLESITTER:     Giacomo Altoe in a DragonSpeed Ferrari 296 GT3

RLL’S TOP START / FINISH AT VIR:     1st – M. Martin (2013) / 1st – Sims/De Phillippi (2018)

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 VIR
The Michelin GT Challenge at VIRginia International Raceway will be the eighth event in program history for RLL Team McLaren. Both Max Esterson and Nikita Johnson have experience here in other series and are looking forward to their return.

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 wqualified third and moved up to second place 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 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. 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. In the last race 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.

MAX ESTERSON ON CONTINUING THE MOMENTUM AT VIR
“I won a Formula Ford race at VIR back in 2020 and am looking forward to going back! There were a lot of positives to take from Road America. We had a strong qualifying and had great, long-run pace in the race. An issue with the power steering took us out with an hour to go, but we were looking good up until then. I think the biggest challenge of VIR will be to keep the rear tires alive over the stint. It can be really hot there in August and the several combined traction zones put a lot of stress on the rears. I’m hopeful Nikita and I can keep up the strong pace in qualifying and the race and give ourselves a good chance at a good result.”

NIKITA JOHNSON ON HIS RETURN TO VIR AND FIRST GT RACE HERE
“I’m excited to be back with RLL Team McLaren at VIR. The last time I was at VIR was a few years ago in an F4 car so I’m excited to get my first taste of it in a GT. We’ve shown our pace as a team, we just need to get a good clean race and not have any issues.  The speed is there and the car has been in a good window these past few weekends. I’m excited to go back to a sprint race format.  It’ll be fun to push the whole time, especially around VIR. I can’t wait to see the team again and get rolling this weekend!”

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.