Round Four of IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge for 2026 sees the second four-hour endurance race of the season. IMSA’s second-tier series was the headline race of the weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sportscar Course. And there was no shortage of action during the O’Reily 4 Hours of Mid-Ohio.

GS: Cooper (and McLaren) Cool in the Clutch

After setting a GS track record in Qualifying on Saturday, Jeff Westphal led the field away from Pole Position. The leaders barely got to the fronstretch when Chris Miller spun at Turn 9. His Unitronics/JDC-Miller Porsche collected the Medusa Motorsports Aston Martin. Athan Sterling was forced to drive back to the pits (and retire) on three wheels. After the restart, the rest of the opening hour afterwards was a quiet affair as the BMWs of Westphal and Steven McAleer set the pace.

Aarow and Mercedes Take Control

After the opening round of pit stops, Austin Krainz assumed the lead after relieving McAleer in the No. 27 AutoTechnic BMW. Behind Krainz, Dutchman Daan Aarow became a man on a mission. Aarow closed a gap of four seconds to reach the BMW. On Lap 51, Aarow used the lap traffic to seize the lead. Aarow would build a sizeable lead of four seconds himself before his pit stop. Unfortunately, AutoTechnic decided to get the undercut on the Winward Mercedes. Steven McAleer got back behind the wheel and put down a pair of flyers to beat Aarow out of the pits to take the net lead.

Bad to Worse for Winward

Into the second half of the race, Aarow looked to be cruising and biding his time in second. But looks can be deceiving. With an hour and forty-two minutes remaining, Aarow unexpectedly headed for the pits. Even more troubling, Aarow took the Mercedes went directly behind the wall. An alternator failure would see the No. 57 Winward Mercedes spend twenty minutes behind the wall.

Thankfully for Winward, Morgan Burkhard crashed at the entrance of Turn 1 six minutes later. The incident brought out the second full course yellow of the race. Thanks to the yellow, the Winward Mercedes only lost ten laps when they finally returned to the track. Safe to say, Winward was out of contention.

Cooper and McLaren go ahead for good

During the pit stops under the yellow, the Ibiza Farm Motorsport McLaren team got Michael Cooper out the pits first. The car who had not seen the top-5 up to that point was now in command. After the restart, Cooper was in cruise control. When Cooper came to the pits for his final stop with fifty-five minutes to go, he was ten seconds clear of the field.

Think that was dominant? After the pit stops, Cooper would build his lead to the dizzying heights of sixteen seconds. Then all that hard work would be wiped away. Martin Sarukhanyan in the No. 14 Circle H Aston Martin was stopped at the exit of The Keyhole, bringing out one last full course yellow.

Despite the field bunching up for one last restart with half an hour to go, nobody in GS had anything for Cooper. Cooper managed his gap to the chasing BMWs behind and took the checkered flag by a commanding four seconds. For Cooper and co-driver Moises Urestsky, Mid-Ohio is their second win of the season. Championship leaders Luca Mars and Dillion Machavern tightened their grasp on the championship lead with a runner-up finish. The No. 95 Turner Motorsport BMW had a quiet consistent day where the car never left the top-5 (outside the pit sequences) and never led (outside the pit sequences). Polesitters Jeff Westphal and Sean McAlister in their No. 39 Carbahn BMW rounded out the podium.

 

The No. 93 Montreal Motorsports Group (MMG) Honda Civic TCR

TCR: Honda Top Hyundai in Last-Lap Thriller

KMW Motorsports and Rocco Pasquarella led the field away from pole position. The No. 5 Honda Civic would lead the opening forty minutes in TCR. Then, Tyler Gonzalez in the Victor Gonzalez Racing Team Cupra Leon took the lead on the frontstretch and started to pull away. For the rest of the first half of the race, Gonzalez and his teammate Franco Girolami would control the field and were looking to add to their Sebring win from March.

One Costly Mistake

Just past the halfway mark, the Argentine Girolami was locked in a battle with Mason Filippi. Entering the Keyhole, Girolami came in too hot and sent Filippi for a spin. The No. 33 Bryan Herta Autosport Hyundai (BHA) Elantra ricocheted back into the No. 99 resulting in right front damage to the Leon. The damage repairs would take them effectively out of the contention for the remainder of the day.

All Good Things Don’t Last Forever

After the Filippi/Girolami tangle, the polesitting KMW Civic – now with Tim Lewis, Jr. at the controls – was back out the front. Before the second full course yellow slowed the field down with ninety-seven minutes remaining (crashing right in front of Mason Filippi), Lewis was in his own zip code twenty-six seconds clear in the lead.

Pit strategy saw a shakeup at the top with Raphael Reis restarting with the class lead. The No. 77 Stallion with Gou Racing Cupra would not be out front for long. Cameron Lawrence in the No. 89 Honda American Racing Team (HART) Civic – not pitting and with older tires – would take the lead with Lewis following him shortly after into second. With an hour and ten minutes remaining, Lewis grabbed the lead from Lawrence before the final stops.

During the pit stop cycle, Lawrence suffered a flat left front tire and would have to revisit pit lane. But that setback would pale in comparison to what came next. After the final restart bunched up the field, Lewis still was in control and started pulling away again. With a 1.5-second lead, white smoke started to come from the back of the Black KMW Civic. The next lap, the car slowed entering the Keyhole and would crawl back to the pits. The culprit? An alternator failure. Heartbreak for the No. 5 KMW Motorsports crew in what should have been their first win of the season.

Duel to the Finish

After the No. 5 fell by the wasteside, all eyes turned to the battle for the TCR win. Denis Dupont would take the lead, but the No. 76 BHA Hyundai was being shadowed. Karl Wittmer in the No. 93 Montreal Motorsports Group (MMG) Honda Civic would size up the Belgian for the remainder of the race. The two best places for Wittmer to pass was entering the Keyhole and Turn 4. The Canadian would size up his opponent as the race drew toward its conclusion.

Wittmer would take his chances, but Dupont was ready taking the preferred line through both corners. Dupont would hold his nerve through China Beach and maintain his advantage through the back of the course. For twenty minutes, Dupont would defend. Wittmer would regroup and bide his time.

Finally, on the final lap, Dupont got sideways out of Turn 1 and immediately went to defense going into the Keyhole. But the momentum was fully with Wittmer. Through Turn 3, Wittmer pulled to the outside of Dupont and outbroke the Hyundai driver, completing the pass around the outside of Turn 4. Wittmer pulled away and never looked back, sealing the class victory in unbelievable fashion.

Continuing The Fight Back

After failing to finish the first two races of the season, MMG has turned the corner. A third at Laguna Seca and now a dramatic win today is proof this team will be one to watch for the second half of the season. After this one got away from them in 2025, this was a well-earned victory for MMG and their driving trio of Dai Yoshihara, Louis-Philippe Montour and Karl Wittmer. Behind Dupont and Preston Brown in second, the sister No. 98 BHA Hyundai of Mark Wilkins and Madison Aust round of the podium, their first of the season.

Finally, the MMG victory had some extra special meaning for Honda with a production plant an hour and a half southwest of the track in Marysville. With a lot of support from the plant at the track today to support the Honda contingent, a win made the day all the more sweeter.

Next Up

Round 5 of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge will take place on Saturday, June 27 at Watkins Glen International during the Sahlen’s Six Hours weekend. With this weekend out the way, we will see the standard two-hour distance for the balance of the season.

Headline Photo: The No. 44 Accelerating Performance/Ibiza Farm Motorsport McLaren Artura GT4