RLL looking to get back to the top as McLaren journey begins

The new IMSA partnership between Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and McLaren Automotive will begin as many teams in other sports begin their seasons when they’re in a rebuilding phase: Tempered expectations at the start, but a vision of a hopeful future and a return to former glory.

After 18 years of winning races and championships with BMW in the American Le Mans Series and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, RLL Team McLaren, as it’s now known, has a new-look setup for the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the first race of a new alliance.

In the garage is a Papaya McLaren GT3 EVO, a platform that didn’t race in IMSA last year. Behind the wheel are four young drivers who are new to the Rolex 24 at Daytona, but not short on talent and willingness to soak up the experience. It's a case of diving into the deep end of the ultra-competitive GTD Pro class and seeing how it goes for them.

RLL president Jay Frye was ultimately always confident his team would remain in IMSA after the separation from BMW, but why McLaren and why GTD PRO?

“Obviously, it was a phenomenal opportunity. Sometimes we do things like that, as late as we did,” as Frye explains. “There are certain opportunities that are out there, and this was something that was new, available. We almost feel lucky that it was available, and we’re really excited to be a part of it. To launch a new program with them is spectacular.

“It’ll be a learning curve for us. Obviously, we have a championship-winning team. It’s historically been a championship-winning, race-winning team. We couldn’t be more excited about the partnership with McLaren. They’ve been amazing to work with,” he adds.

As we learned after the November IMSA Sanctioned Test through RLL’s vice president of IMSA operations Ricardo Nault, it was a rush to get the rebuilt team together with a car for two days of running.

It’s funny – the first test we did last fall, in November, we got a car basically on Wednesday (the week before the test),” Frye recalls. “Spare parts on Thursday, Friday, we worked all weekend, loaded the trucks to Daytona on Tuesday, and then ran. And the car ran all weekend. The test went fine, it’s been a good start.

“We’re really proud of what the team has put together and done to this point. From the pit equipment to the car, to everything that we’ve done – with McLaren’s support – it’s been spectacular.”

For this weekend's race, RLL Team McLaren can lean on a tenured McLaren factory GT driver, Dean MacDonald. The young Scot, in his first time at Daytona, qualified second in class and will start the race. It reinforced the qualities that have made him a race winner and GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup champion in recent years.

“To have Dean, who’s got thousands of miles of laps in this car to help us understand it, shake it down, learn more about it… He’s been a massive help,” Frye says of MacDonald.

However, MacDonald, and for that matter Jüri Vips, are only committed for the Daytona 24 Hours as of the present. Instead, the full-season effort will be led by an unlikely duo of IMSA rookies: Max Esterson and Nikita Johnson.

Esterson returns to American motorsport after immense success in Formula Ford overseas gave way to frustration in Formula 3 and Formula 2. He got a late one-off drive at Petit Le Mans in October for JDC-Miller MotorSports in a privateer Porsche, and drove reasonably well under the circumstances. But that one race comprises all of his sportscar racing experience.

Johnson, meanwhile, doesn’t turn 18 until late May, and hadn't raced outside the single-seater sphere until this program came along. He's won several races on the Road To Indy ladder system, and going to have to juggle his first full seasons in Indy NXT and IMSA, keeping him very, very busy. It's going to be fascinating to see what this dual effort does for his development.

Both Esterson and Johnson are Silver-rated, competing against a suite of drivers in GTD PRO with years (in some cases decades) of competing in IMSA, its predecessors, and elsewhere. Frye isn’t too worried about how they’ll hold up against GTD Pro’s very best, though.

After 18 years with BMW, RLL is now awash with papaya.Brandon Badraoui/IMSA photo

“The expectation is we’ve got two really fast, really good young race car drivers that are full-time guys. Well, they’re gonna be a lot better at the end of the season, than they are now, right? That’s the goal,” Frye proclaims.

“We’re going to be a lot better as a team at the end of the season than we are now. This is something we’re building all together. This is a long-term program.”

There are no concerns either about the McLaren GT3 EVO. It's a quick car which has won major endurance races and been campaigned by a number of world-class teams.

“So far, the thing’s been bulletproof, right?” Frye asked. “We’ve had a lot of laps, a lot of miles. We have the expectation it will (finish), and if it doesn’t, it’ll be alright.”

Encouragingly, there have been no reliability issues or incidents through testing, practice, or qualifying for RLL to firefight going into the race. Even so, RLL has the spare parts to deal with many issues, short of a write-off of its current car, as the team hasn't yet taken delivery of a spare chassis.

So what could possibly be the expectations for the year ahead? “You have to have realistic expectations, obviously,” Frye admits. “First time with this car, the drivers are young at this point…but are gonna pick it up very quickly. I think by the end of the year, you can surprise people."

RLL is aiming higher, as the season progresses – podiums, even wins, aren’t impossible according to Frye. “Our expectations are probably different from what other people might have. We always have high expectations – you don’t show up to try and not perform, you want to perform at a high level. And we feel good about it,” he adds.

Some team members went to follow the BMW M Hybrid V8s to Team WRT, due to their expertise with the platform and the natural order of downscaling from two cars to one. But all of the personnel on the 2026 RLL effort were with the BMW program last year, sticking through all the uncertainty and believing that a new project would be put together.

“They had confidence that we’d get something done,” Frye said of his crew. “We did. It’s a good place to work, we like where we work. We try to have an employee-first type of mentality. We’re really proud of the employees that stayed – and I think it’s cool for them now, being part of something that’s new, and building something going forward in the future.”

As mentioned, the car’s held up well and has been quick at Daytona. The team’s garage looks as tidy and professional as the Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports cars to its left, too.

And already, there’s a road map in place for RLL’s future with McLaren. Could that include running the new McLaren Hypercar in GTP in the future? It’s not yet certain. Will we see an expansion of the current GTD Pro effort, though?

“We fully expect to expand to two cars for next season,” Frye affirmed.

Never, in the months between the announcement that BMW and RLL would part their separate ways in July – and the McLaren announcement in November – did Frye think that RLL wouldn’t be on the IMSA grid. Even when the team was nowhere to be found on the initial entry list for the 2026 season, he remained confident.

“We had kind of a Plan A, B, C, and obviously, Bobby (Rahal)’s been committed, RLL’s been committed. Again, you think about the BMW part – that’s an 18-year program. That’s a long time! That’s a lot to be proud of, on the BMW side and the RLL side. All things end at some point. So, it ended, and we ended as friends.

“We’re excited about building, hopefully, another 18-year program.”