How Heinrich found himself fighting for IMSA's GTP drivers' crown with two different teams

Now that it’s possible for him to run the full IMSA GTP season, Porsche works driver Laurin Heinrich is up for the task of trying to win the GTP Drivers’ Championship with two different teams.

Heinrich, the 2024 IMSA GTD Pro champion, secured a promotion to the Porsche Penske Motorsport factory GTP team in 2026. But with PPM downsizing to an IMSA-only effort, Heinrich was only slated for three outings for the factory team in the three longest endurance rounds: Daytona, Sebring, and Petit Le Mans (Road Atlanta).

His 2026 calendar was to be supplemented by GT races around the world, including a big one in late June, the 24 Hours of Spa. There, he would return to top Porsche customer team Schumacher CLRT, part of a loaded lineup gunning for the overall win. On top of that, Heinrich would be trying to bounce back from a vicious crash that he suffered early in last year’s race – one that he was quite fortunate to walk away from.

But a funny thing happened to start the season: Heinrich won both the Rolex 24 At Daytona and Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring alongside Felipe Nasr and Julien Andlauer. His pace in both races not only led The B Pillar averages, but his poise and confidence behind the wheel of the factory 963 passed the so-called “eye test”. He wasn’t driving like a wide-eyed understudy, and it felt like a waste to have him only drive in three races at the top class.

Then ahead of Long Beach, GTP’s sole surviving privateer team JDC-Miller MotorSports and Porsche brokered a deal to put Heinrich in the car for the sprint races starting at Long Beach and Laguna Seca. And at Laguna Seca, Heinrich was the catalyst to JDC-Miller’s stunning first win in the GTP era. Suddenly, he was leading the GTP standings on his own, but looked as if he’d have to miss Watkins Glen due to his prior commitments to Porsche at Spa.

“We found ourselves in the situation that the program came up with JDC-Miller Motorsport, which was great,” recalls Heinrich. “That’s exactly what I was looking for, to get more experience in the LMDh prototype, because I’m still new.

“And it was always clear that the commitment to do Spa together with Schumacher CLRT was there before, and I think it would be only fair in that situation to not scrap that plan just yet.

“But who would have thought I was the points leader after Laguna Seca, and still second in the points after Detroit? So that obviously shook up the situation a little bit, and left us thinking what to do, what’s the best scenario, what’s fair for everyone?

“In the end, the solution was just an open dialogue between myself, Porsche, Schumacher CLRT, as well as JDC-Miller Motorsports. And we all came to the conclusion that we’re here to compete for wins, for championships – and I think that’s what Porsche also stands for. In the end, it was just the right decision to pursue that path in IMSA.”

So while Heinrich was off racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the first time, the new proposal was made official: Schumacher CLRT would release Heinrich from his obligations at Spa (former Porsche factory ace Frédéric Makowiecki was picked as a more-than-serviceable replacement at Spa), and Heinrich would rejoin co-drivers Tijmen van der Helm and Kaylen Frederick for the six-hour race at Watkins Glen.

Not long after, JDC-Miller also ended any speculation about who Heinrich would drive for at Road America by confirming he’ll return to the team for the six-hour Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix.

Heinrich was initially only booked for three endurance rounds with Porsche Penske Motorsport, but victories at Daytona (above) and Sebring unlocked new opportunities. James Gilbert/Getty Images

Heading into his third career start at Watkins Glen, and first behind the wheel of the Porsche 963, Heinrich said: “My expectations are quite open.

“We will be one of the few three-driver line-ups (in GTP), which obviously makes things a little bit different. It will be our first race on the hard (tire) compound), which we shouldn’t forget is also new this year. We don’t have experience on that one, so it’s going to be interesting.”

In two previous runs at Watkins Glen for AO Racing, Heinrich’s results were sixth in 2024 and fifth in 2025. Not the absolute worst outcomes, but the track hasn’t been one of his most successful hunting grounds compared to places like Sebring and Laguna Seca, for instance.

“I know my track record at Watkins Glen is not the greatest – so far, I’ve only competed there in the GT category, and I think that there’s tracks on the IMSA calendar which suits our 911 GT3 R better than Watkins Glen,” he assesses. “So it was always pretty rough once we brought Rexy or Roxy to the track.

“But I’m happy to hopefully fight for something big in Watkins Glen. I think it should be a great track to drive the prototype around – it’s a pretty flat surface, it’s not bumpy, so it allows you to run pretty low ride heights, which always wakes up the car, makes it feel alive, in the right environment that it’s meant to be driven.”

Heinrich wasn’t at his best at Detroit, where a collision with the No. 23 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie and a brutal 60-second penalty stop relegated him to last in class and took him out of the points lead. He's now trailing Jack Aitken by 144 points.

But he bounced back, contributing to CrowdStrike Racing by APR’s LMP2 Pro/Am class win at Le Mans in a starring role – and continuing Heinrich’s seemingly never-ending run of first-time successes.

“I think the best thing to do is to go into the weekend without many expectations and see where we unload the car, see where it goes,” Heinrich says. “In Laguna, I think that was our strength: We unloaded the car in pretty good shape, and we continued from there on. So I hope it’s going to be the same there in Watkins Glen.”

Heinrich was also very blunt when weighing in on the clashes between the Six Hours of the Glen and the 24 Hours of Spa, saying, “To be honest, I’m very upset with this clash.”

Formula 1 moving the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa to July in recent years has forced the circuit to shift the Spa 24 Hours up in the calendar to June, clustering multiple marquee 24-hour races in a tight window.

“It has been happening for quite some years already now, these are two very meaningful races, and to not be able to do them both in the same year, to have that clash, is a big shame," he said. "Not only for us drivers, but also for the teams, for the fans. I don’t understand why we cannot find a better solution for this, because there are some other free weekends,."