The one-on-one battle in GTD neither driver wants to lose

Heading into this weekend’s IMSA Michelin GT Challenge at VIRginia International Raceway, much of the focus is on a tight battle at the top of the GTD PRO standings, and how it could change after Sunday’s final sprint of the season, but of equal importance is a high-stakes showdown in the GTD class between Inception Racing’s Brendon Iribe and AWA’s Orey Fidani that neither driver wants to lose.

Since the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, they’ve been the only Bronze-rated drivers in GTD competing in every round, thus they’re the only two drivers eligible for IMSA’s Bob Akin Award – a prize which represents more than just a token honor for the top Bronze driver in IMSA’s ostensibly Pro/Am GT category.

It also bears an automatic invitation to the following year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans in the driver’s name, which can be cashed in for a place on Le Mans’ LMGT3 grid.

Fidani cashed in that golden ticket to Le Mans after winning the Akin Award last year, just as his rival Iribe did when he won the 2023 Akin Award. Both drivers committed to doing it again next year if they get it, which is a wise idea, especially since Le Mans grid slots in LMGT3 are at a premium, outside of the 16 full-season FIA World Endurance Championship competitors.

Of the additional six LMGT3s that raced at Le Mans, four of them were automatic invites earned via championships in other series, and only two were true “at-large” entries, given to teams with tenure in ACO-sanctioned series.

Compared to Iribe taking the LMGT3 pole position in last year’s Le Mans, Fidani and AWA had a low-key first outing at Le Mans this year. The Canadian team persevered to a strong tenth place finish. Instead of being depleted when they came back to North America, the AWA crew arrived at Watkins Glen the only days later with an extra bounce in their step, hungry to go back again in 2026.

Not long after arriving, they got the news that Sheena Monk, the only other full-time GTD Bronze driver in the Akin Award race, left Triarsi Competizione. That turned a three-driver race into a duel between Fidani and Iribe for the next automatic invitation.

As Fidani told IMSA Radio’s Arjuna Kankipati on Friday, he’s not feeling anxious about the final three races, where the margin between getting that golden ticket to Le Mans versus getting shut out is virtually zero.

“Stressed I don’t get, because I love this, and do it for fun, but I really do want to get that (award) and get back over the pond to Le Mans and do that again,” Fidani said. “This year it was awesome, but a big learning curve for everybody, the whole team – me included. 

“Now that we’ve got that under our belt, I’d like to go back again and give it a clean shot.”

The chase is on, as the Ferrari sits just 44 points behind their competition. Jake Galstad/IMSA

The difference between the Akin Award and LMP2’s equivalent Jim Trueman Award is that LMP2 in IMSA requires the participation of a Bronze driver in every round, meaning the Trueman Award standings are identical to the overall LMP2 championship standings. In GTD, where there is no Bronze mandate, the eligible drivers for the Akin Award are only scoring points within their group.

It's why, heading into VIR, Fidani and co-driver Matt Bell lead Iribe and co-driver Frederik Schandorff by 44 points (less than the difference between finishing first and third in class), but in the race for a golden ticket to Le Mans, they are level on 2,260 points.

The two Akin Award candidates left Watkins Glen tied in that championship, and in the subsequent best-of-five series which began at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, the series is tied at 1-1 heading into a pivotal VIR round. Whichever of the two drivers finishes first on Sunday will then go into Indianapolis with a 30-point lead in the Akin Award standings. 

At the two endurance races at Indy and Road Atlanta, other Bronze drivers from Michelin Endurance Cup programs will be a factor in the Fidani vs. Iribe duel for the first time since Laguna Seca, which will create a much wider range of points scenarios.

“Last year at Daytona, we didn’t get very far into it, and we still managed to claim the award,” Bell told RACER. “This year, we won it, so it’s given us a little bit more of a head start.”

“Obviously, things weren’t smooth for the No. 70 (Inception Racing) as well. They had a manufacturer change mid-season,” alluding to the switch from McLaren to Ferrari following last year’s VIR race. "This year, they know that car far more inside-out now. I think they’ve gotten stronger in the car they’re in now – but so have we, as we’ve shown consistently this season.”

Bell laid it out simply on behalf of his crewmates working on the No. 13 AWA Corvette Z06 GT3.R: “We have to beat one car every weekend we go out to get back to Le Mans.

“Having the goal to go there the first time was always very high. Then, having done it, I think it’s a pretty strong addiction, so everyone wants to go back.”

On the other side, VIR is where the golden ticket effectively slipped out of Iribe’s hands last year, and Road America was a missed opportunity for the No. 70 Inception Ferrari to pull away from its principal rival.

Ollie Milroy, Inception’s Endurance Cup specialist driver, spoke to RACER about it back at Watkins Glen: “It’s definitely something that is massively on our minds in these races, is the competition between the two cars.

“It’s a huge prize that money almost can’t buy. You can’t buy yourself an entry for Le Mans, so it’s a really valuable prize. Obviously, having missed it, as a team we’re desperate to be back there next year.

“We just have to have clean races, do the best that we can do, and whatever else happens, happens.”

It’s unlikely that either Fidani or Iribe will factor into the GTD class win in Sunday’s race – not impossible, but it would take some strange bounces that would negate the expected pace gap between them and their 11 Silver-rated counterparts in the other GTD cars.

The internal competition between the AWA Corvette and Inception Ferrari will be something to watch out for. Whoever wins the duel at VIR on Sunday will take a big step towards going to Le Mans next summer with their team, and making their defeated rival watch it as an envious spectator.