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IMSA gearing up for annual all-star showcase at Rolex 24 At Daytona

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The entire Andretti Global IndyCar Series roster is competing at the Rolex 24 At Daytona. The same is true for Chip Ganassi Racing’s three IndyCar drivers, and there are plenty of other all stars from other racing series and disciplines who are waiting to descend on Daytona International Raceway for IMSA’s grand season-opener later this month.

WeatherTech SportsCar Championship fans have come to expect a fun variety of full-time teams and drivers in attendance to launch the year, along with an interesting mix of one-off and part-time guest drivers to chase for photos and autographs. Spread throughout the Roar Before the 24 test (January 16-18) and the main week of activities (Jan. 22-25), the offerings spanning IMSA’s four classes shouldn’t disappoint.

Andretti Global’s presence at the Rolex 24 is a case of talent distribution as Kyle Kirkwood (Vasser Sullivan Lexus GTD Pro), Will Power (75 Express Mercedes-AMG GTD), and Marcus Ericsson (Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini GTD) are found across three different teams.

It’s an admittedly strange situation where the trio aren’t in IMSA GTP — the series’ top class where IndyCar’s leading drivers are typically placed — but rather, in its entry-level pro-am GT category with Power, who is making his Rolex 24 debut, and Ericsson, who made DPi/GTP appearances in 2022 and 2024.

For Kirkwood in the all-pro GT class, the relationship with 1996 IndyCar champion Jimmy Vasser and businessman James Sullivan predates his IndyCar career, and while he’s drawn interest from IMSA’s prototype teams, his return to the factory Lexus program in 2026 for a seventh season of enduro action is by choice.

There’s a fourth member of the Andretti Global team in the field with Colton Herta (Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing GTP), who is no longer a fixture in its IndyCar program — although he’s tipped to make a return for the Indianapolis 500 — as his upcoming season will be spent racing in Formula 2 and test driving for the TWG Motorsports-led Cadillac F1 team, which owns Andretti Global and the Cadillac WTR GTP effort. Within the extended Andretti/TWG quartet, Herta is the most accomplished at the Rolex 24 with wins in 2019 (BMW M8 GTE GTLM) and in 2022 (DragonSpeed LMP2).

With Herta factored in for his eighth start, he and his stablemates have GTD, GTD Pro, and GTP covered, leaving only LMP2 without representation. But the pro-am prototype class has a number of familiar names on the entry list.

Ed Carpenter Racing’s first-time IndyCar race winner Christian Rasmussen is back in LMP2 (AO Racing) with the defending series champions and is looking to add another Rolex 24 class win to the victory he claimed in 2024 (Era Motorsport). Arrow McLaren’s Nolan Siegel has two IMSA enduro wins to his credit at Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta’s Petit Le Mans, and a Rolex 24 podium from 2023, but lacks a Rolex 24 class win and will try once more in LMP2 (Inter Europol Competition).

Rasmussen will make his fifth Rolex 24 start in the LMP2 class, and his second with AO Racing. Brandon Badraoui/IMSA

Chip Ganassi Racing also has a presence in LMP2 with Kyffin Simpson (Tower Motorsport) and its new Indy NXT signing James Roe (Era Motorsport). Add in four-time Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais (Tower Motorsport), recent Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing IndyCar driver Pietro Fittipaldi (Pratt Miller Motorsports) and his younger brother Enzo (Pratt Miller Motorsports) who signed with the HMD Motorsports Indy NXT team, plus former Williams F1 driver Logan Sargeant (Era Motorsport) and LMP2 has no shortage of veterans and rising talents to track across 24 hours of racing.

Returning to GTP, Ganassi’s deep ties to Honda are evident through the placement of its defending IndyCar champion and Indy 500 winner Alex Palou and its six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon (main image) with its affiliate IndyCar program (Acura Meyer Shank Racing).

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Palou, a four-time IndyCar title winner, has made three Rolex 24 starts with a best finish of seventh, while Dixon is by far the most experienced with 22 starts to date. He’s also the most successful among all stars with victories in 2006 (Riley-Lexus Daytona Prototype), 2015 (Riley-Ford DP Prototype), 2018 (Ford GT GTLM), and 2020 (Cadillac DPi).

They’ll be joined by open-wheel and stock car ace AJ Allmendinger from the Kaulig Racing NASCAR Cup Series team, who won the Rolex 24 in 2012 with MSR and will share the No. 60 Acura with Dixon.

There was hope for new NASCAR Xfinity Series champion Jesse Love to contest his first Rolex 24, and while those plans fell through, his main 2025 rival, Trackhouse Racing’s Connor Zilisch, will make his IMSA GTP debut (Action Express Racing Cadillac) after rising up the IMSA ladder in the Mazda MX-5 Cup series and winning the Rolex 24’s LMP2 class in 2024 (Era Motorsport). Zilisch will have Mercedes F1 reserve driver Frederik Vesti as a teammate in the AXR Cadillac; Vesti won two enduros after Daytona with the GTP team in 2025.

Last year, Zilisch shared a Corvette Z06 GT3 at Daytona with Robert Wickens and Trackhouse teammate Shane van Gisbergen (DXDT Racing), and while he’s stepped up to GTP and van Gisbergen is taking a year off from the Rolex 24, Wickens is back and has Team Penske IndyCar frontrunner Scott McLaughlin among his co-drivers.

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F1 veteran Kevin Magnussen has pivoted to factory prototype racing with BMW and heads back to the Rolex 24 as part of the German marque’s revised GTP effort (BMW M Team WRT). Magnussen’s former Haas F1 teammate Romain Grosjean, who last competed at Daytona with the Lamborghini GTP program which shut down during the offseason, made enough of an impression on Bill Riley, whose Riley Motorsports campaigned the car for Lamborghini, to bring Grosjean in to complete its new effort (Myers Riley Motorsports Ford Mustang GTD).

Although more all stars could be confirmed, the last to stand out is PREMA Racing IndyCar driver Callum Ilott (Wright Motorsports Porsche GTD), who took part in his first Rolex 24 last year in LMP2 (Pratt Miller Motorsports) and is meant to do the majority of the WeatherTech Championship season with Wright.