Winward Racing is back in the title picture yet again as the program looks to claim its third consecutive GTD championship at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta (MRRA) this weekend in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season finale, the 10-hour Motul Petit Le Mans.
Russel Ward, team co-owner and driver, along with full-season co-driver Phillip Ellis in their No. 57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO, have continued their success in 2026, winning three of the last four races entering the final event of the season.
While the championship remains the immediate focus for the team, Winward Racing is also searching for its first Motul Petit Le Mans victory, the third-longest race on the IMSA calendar.
With wins already secured in the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring, Winward Racing and Ward would love to add a Petit Le Mans victory to the program’s resume alongside another season-long championship. The team enters the weekend with confidence following an extensive testing effort at MRRA.
“On paper, it seems like a racetrack that should suit the Mercedes-AMG GT3 really well,” Ward said. “We certainly love driving the racetrack, but every time we come into the race weekend, we seem to be missing a little bit compared to the competition. We’ve kind of added that onto our testing schedule. It’s one of the closer tracks to us here in Houston, so it’s pretty easy to test there. We went there last week and kind of threw the kitchen sink at the car. We changed pretty much everything that we could to try to find differences in the setups and come up with a really, really sharp race car coming into the weekend.
“For us, there’s been two races now that have kind of eluded us on the calendar. One is Petit Le Mans as we haven’t had a victory there, or even a podium there, and then we haven’t had it at Long Beach either. To close those two out mean a ton to the program, so we’re just going to have to go there and see where we’re at.
“You never really know until you start the race. That track is just incredibly challenging. It’s really high commitment place. A lot of bumps there, which wreak havoc on the torque sensor system, with this being kind of a newer system to the Mercedes-AMG, and not really something that was, I think, envisioned for the car when they when they designed it 10 years ago.
“These are some of the things that we’re out there testing and seeing. Seeing if we can make a bit of a difference, but I know the Turner car will be super quick there. They’re always good, so, it’s going to be an exciting battle. For us, we’re just going to focus on the race, and try not to look too much at what the 96 is doing. I think we learned our lesson there in the past when you look at the competition and kind of change up your methodology. You never really know what the outcome can be, so you really just need to focus on the race and going to maximize the result of Petit.”
Regardless of the result at Petit Le Mans, Winward Racing has already established itself as one of the premier GT teams in sportscar racing.
With a wealth of success globally, particularly in IMSA, and continued growth across the organization, which included a brief move into the GTD Pro class at Daytona and Sebring earlier this year, the potential remains extensive for the Ward family’s program.
“We just have to kind of keep pinching ourselves every year,” Ward said. “I think it comes down to the really amazing group of people that we have here in the United States and over in Europe. It’s incredibly difficult to get a program to that level to where you can go out there and compete for race victories and I think it’s even harder to keep the program there because it’s sometimes kind of hard to look at the success and find something to improve out of it, but I think we do a really good job of doing that here.
“I think the success that we’ve had with Mercedes-AMG has really cemented Winward Racing, as its name is kind of synonymous with Mercedes-AMG, and GT racing right now. We’d like to keep it that way. For us, we just keep focusing on doing the best that we can and keeping the program at the highest level that we can possibly keep it at, and hopefully that brings additional opportunities our way and really cements us, you know, with Mercedes-AMG as a top performance team.”
Russel Ward and Winward Racing will look to add another championship to their GT dynasty this Saturday, Oct. 3, when the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship concludes its 2026 campaign with the 10-hour Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
The season finale is scheduled to begin at noon ET, with live coverage in the United States available across NBC, NBCSN and Peacock, as well as internationally on IMSA.tv and IMSA’s official YouTube channel.
