No. 7: IMSA Returns to IMS; Endurance Race Coming in ‘24
December 25, 2023 | By Curt Cavin, Indianapolis Motor Speedway
Note: The Penske Entertainment editorial staff is looking back at the 10 biggest moments of 2023 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in this year-end series, with one installment appearing on the site per day in countdown fashion from Dec. 22-31.
Elite North American sports car racing returned to Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 2023, and it will come back in a longer form next year.
This year’s inaugural TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship was a race spanning two hours, 40 minutes. Next year, the time between green and checkered flags will be more than twice that long.
The six-hour race at IMS will be held Sept. 22, 2024.
Porsche Penske Motorsports will try to again make the event “Penske perfect,” a mantra key to the business success of Roger Penske’s global organization.
Penske’s team completed a weekend sweep of the return of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship to IMS for the first time since 2014. The No. 6 entry driven by Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet led a 1-2 finish for the team, beating the No. 7 Porsche 963 shared by pole sitter Matt Campbell and Felipe Nasr by 17.421 seconds.
The victory capped a magical weekend for the “home team” as Campbell and Nasr led both practice sessions and drove to the pole before Tandy and Jaminet, who qualified second, stepped forward to win the race.
That gave Team Penske a second win at the Brickyard this season after Josef Newgarden won the Indianapolis 500 presented by Gainbridge for the team’s record-extending 19th victory in the historic event. Team Penske President Tim Cindric served as the race-winning strategist for Newgarden in May and Tandy and Jaminet in September.
Cindric’s year included induction in the IMS Hall of Fame. He was honored in the ceremony alongside longtime IMS executive Tony George.
In the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks, organizations that also compete in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES filled all three spots on the overall and Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class podium, as Nick Yelloly and Connor De Phillippi finished third in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL prototype fielded by Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.
Next year’s marquee sports car event at IMS will be the 10th of the 11-round series. The IMS round also will be the fourth leg of the five-leg Michelin Endurance Cup of races of six hours or longer, joining the Rolex 24 At Daytona (Jan. 27-28), the 12 Hours of Sebring (March 16), the Six Hours of Watkins Glen (June 30) and Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta (Oct. 12).
All four WeatherTech SportsCar Championship classes in 2024 will race at IMS during the second annual TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks. That lineup includes GTP, Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), GT Daytona Pro (GTD Pro) and GT Daytona (GTD).
The Michelin Pilot Challenge for production-based cars also will return to IMS in 2024 for a two-hour race.