Competitors Gear Up for Four-Hour Mid-Ohio Headliner

For nearly a decade, two IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge races run an additional two hours beyond the standard-length of two hours, but pack a similar punch of parity and picture-perfect finishes. Daytona International Speedway has hosted the most, with its BMW M Endurance Challenge race running to four hours every year since 2017, while Watkins Glen International, Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, Road America, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course have alternated the second.

The O’Reilly Auto Parts 4 Hours of Mid-Ohio, streaming live Sunday at 11:55 a.m. ET on Peacock and globally, ad-free courtesy of Michelin on IMSA’s Official YouTube channel, runs for its second consecutive year, with fuel saving capturing the day in 2024.

The GS class winner is traditionally hard to pick, but in the last five four-hour races, no one manufacturer has separated itself.

Ford, Mercedes-AMG, Porsche, Aston Martin and McLaren have made it five different GS winning manufacturers from five different teams in the last five four-hour Michelin Pilot Challenge races dating to Daytona 2023. It leaves BMW and Toyota available to make it a sixth in six.

Daytona winners Michael Cooper and Moisey Uretsky, in the No. 44 Ibiza Farm Motorsports McLaren Artura GT4, seek to become the first GS pair to win both four-hour races in the same season.

They’re also looking to rebound from contact from another car last time out at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, which has required significant repairs.

RS1’s Jan Heylen and Luca Mars finished second at both Daytona and Sebring in the No. 28 Porsche 718 GT4 RS CS, before breaking through to win at WeatherTech Raceway to extend their points lead to 170 over Sean McAlister and Jeff Westphal in the No. 39 CarBahn with Peregrine racing BMW M4 GT4 EVO.

In TCR, Hyundai has achieved a lot in its tenure in the series and has opened the year with three straight wins. But one thing the brand hasn’t done is win both four-hour races in a single season.

Denis Dupont and Preston Brown’s back-to-back four-hour TCR wins at Mid-Ohio last year and Daytona this year were the first two four-hour wins for the Hyundai Elantra N TCR; the brand’s only other four-hour Michelin Pilot Challenge win came in 2020 at Road Atlanta with the previous generation Veloster N TCR.

If Brown and Dupont, sharing the No. 76 Bryan Herta Autosport Hyundai Elantra N TCR, can win again, they’ll become the second TCR pair to sweep the two four-hour races in a season.

The last was KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering, which won both in 2022 at Daytona and Road America with the Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR. KMW now races the Honda Civic FL5 TCR and will look to deliver Honda’s first four-hour race win since 2021, which occurred at Watkins Glen.

Regardless of the manufacturer on top, the four-hour races have retained Michelin Pilot Challenge’s hallmark of close finishes.

Eight of the last ten GS four-hour races have featured a margin of victory less than two seconds, with the only outliers Todd Coleman and Aaron Telitz’s win at Mid-Ohio last year (4.533 seconds) and Eric Filgueiras and Stevan McAleer’s Daytona 2022 win (4.631 seconds).

It’s a similar story in TCR, with six of the last 10 four-hour race margin of victories less than two seconds. The Brown/Dupont win in Daytona came in a photo finish over teammates Mark Wilkins and Bryson Morris, who ended runner-up by just 0.067 of a second.

Brown and Dupont continued their momentum with a win at WeatherTech Raceway as part of a Hyundai podium sweep, and they enter the weekend with a 40-point lead over teammates Harry Gottsacker and Mason Filippi in the sister No. 98 car.

At Mid-Ohio, 38 cars split between 23 in GS and 15 in TCR look to add to the parity party.

A handful of changes to note in GS: Zach Veach and Harrison Goodman will share a CSM-entered No. 16 Porsche 718 GT4 RS CS, UniTronic/JDC-Miller MotorSports’ Mikey Taylor is set to return after missing Monterey due to the birth of his son, BGB Motorsports is back with the trio of Spencer Pumpelly, Andy Lally and Thomas Collingwood, and a number of third drivers return from Daytona throughout both classes for the four-hour race.

Monterey podium finishers Panam Motorsport are not on the grid this race, nor is CDR Valkyrie which was sixth in Monterey.

In TCR, past IMSA 3D Scholarship recipient Jaden Conwright will share the No. 31 RVA Graphics Motorsports By Speed Syndicate Audi RS 3 LMS TCR with Luke Rumberg. Christina Lam, one of the finalists for this year’s scholarship, is also back in the No. 10 Rockwell Autosport Development Audi.

HART, racing on home soil in Ohio, is back with its No. 89 Honda Civic FL5 TCR with Chad Gilsinger, Tyler Chambers and Cameron Lawrence. The Gou Racing Cupra is absent this event.