By alley - Oct 24, 2016, 3:33 PM ET

IMSA: WeatherTech Racing expected to return in new guise

WeatherTech Racing is expected to return to IMSA's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with a new entrant and manufacturer.

Owned by WeatherTech founder David MacNeil, the team is said to be preparing for a full-season GTD program with his son Cooper MacNeil piloting a Mercedes-AMG GT3.

It's also believed WeatherTech Racing would switch from Porsche specialist Alex Job Racing to Riley Motorsports, which will field a number of Mercedes-AMG GT3s starting in 2017. Reached for comment, a WeatherTech Racing representative told RACER, "It's that time of year where everything is being evaluated."

Job told

RACER

, "As far as the WeatherTech program, I really don't know at this time," and a call to Riley went unreturned.

In PWC, Cooper MacNeil and Gunnar Jeannette represented the WeatherTech/AJR team at Sonoma Raceway and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in the GT class, and MacNeil went on to win the GT-A category in Monterey. The two drivers also shared a Porsche to compete in PWC's short-form SprintX endurance events and came close to winning the season finale before a late mechanical failure intervened.

MacNeil's GTD exit – heavily attributed to Balance of Performance concerns – made for an ugly split with IMSA at the time, but a positive resolution appears to have been found.

Although formal confirmation of the works-affiliated Riley/Mercedes-AMG GT3 program has yet to be made, longtime Riley customer Ben Keating is known to be moving from his familiar Riley-run Dodge Viper to the German coupe in 2017, and more of the V8-powered cars are expected to land on the GTD grid.

In light of the possible GTD split with WeatherTech Racing, Job's championship-winning team would be in a position to welcome new GTD customers to the fold. IMSA's short offseason starts its transition towards official testing in November and the running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona in January is now less than 100 days away.