Foley playing consistency card as he chases that elusive first IMSA GTD title

Turner Motorsport has become BMW’s longest-tenured private racing team with nearly 30 years of racing heritage, who’ve given several standout drivers a platform to succeed. And since 2018, Robby Foley has grown from being the young apprentice of the great Bill Auberlen, to his successor and the leading driver of the team in the current decade.

With Turner, Foley has won the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge GS championship, and back-to-back GT World Challenge America Pro-Am championships. And Foley has finished in the top five of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD standings every year since his first full-time campaign with the team in 2019 – but he’s yet to win the series championship.

But through consistency and continuity, Foley, co-driver Patrick Gallagher and Turner Motorsport are in position to take the team’s first championship in IMSA’s top-level series since 2014, the year of the Grand Am/ALMS merger.

“We haven’t broken through for a win yet,” Foley said going into this weekend’s race at VIRginia International Raceway, “but we’ve always been in the mix, where some others have had, let’s say, more up-and-down years. The model for us has always been consistency.

“I think in the last three races we can turn the wick up a little bit and try to break through for that win. But we’ve just got to keep it simple and execute well, and collect as many points as possible.”

Though it’s been over two years since Foley and Gallagher got their last IMSA WeatherTech win in a two-hour, 40-minute sprint at Road America, the Turner duo also haven’t failed to take the checkered flag in 41 races, a streak dating back to the 2022 race at Lime Rock Park.

In other words, since Foley and Gallagher were put together in GTD for the first time in 2023, they’ve finished every race they’ve run together.

Wins have been as elusive as titles for Foley (far right) and company, but consistent strong finishes are keeping them in play. Michael Levitt/Lumen via Getty Images

“I think continuity is good; we basically have the same group of people together since I’ve been with Turner in general,” said Foley. “Same core group of crew guys, similar engineering team. We got a new car last year with the [BMW M4 GT3] EVO, which definitely took some adjusting. But everybody just speaks the same language, and it’s very seamless.”

Only the role of Michelin Endurance Cup specialist has changed hands since Foley and Gallagher started driving in GTD together: First Michael Dinan, then Jake Walker Jr., and most recently Francis Selldorff moved into the third driver role for the longest five races of the year.

“We have good routine dialogue between each other, we like the same thing out of the car. So we can just hit the ground running, and I think it’s important to do that these days,” said Foley. “We generally get two practice sessions before qualifying, so if you don’t come off the trailer at least with a strong direction after the first practice, you’re just going to be behind. You really have to start the weekend on the right foot.”

That ability to start a weekend strong has paid dividends. This year the No. 96 Turner BMW has finished in the top 10 in every race. Its best results are second at Long Beach and third at Mosport, and its worst finish is 10th at Daytona – the other big prize in IMSA that has eluded the team and its drivers for many years.

But at Road America, the championship-leading No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin suffered a devastating setback after the checkered flag. An unsafe rejoin late in the race resulted in a post-race time penalty and a demotion from fifth to 15th, taking 100 points away from the team and its full-time driver Eduardo Barrichello.

It turned a fairly healthy points lead for Barrichello and Heart of Racing into a minuscule 24-point gap from first to second, and 26 points to Gallagher and Foley in third place. In fact, the top four teams in the standings are all within 45 points of the lead going into Saturday’s qualifying sessions and the race on Sunday.

Even as the points battle has tightened up considerably, the caveat is that two-time and defending GTD champions Winward Racing have now won the last two races, and have leapt to second in points. Russell Ward and Philip Ellis have erased the setbacks of a tough spring to move back to within reach of a third straight GTD championship.

“We’ve personally put ourselves in the conversation to fight for the championship, and realistically, it’s a four-car race now. I think we have to just be a little bit more aggressive now knowing that we have a small buffer back to P5 in the championship,” Foley said of the team’s outlook in the last three rounds. “They (Winward) have been the benchmark in our category for the past few seasons. They always have incredible pace at different tracks; the team executes very well. We fought for the championship with them in 2024, albeit it wasn’t very close. In the end, we finished second to them.

“As the craziness of the racing goes a little bit up and down, as we’ve seen in the past year, I’m curious how the end of the season will play out in that regard. I think for us,” Foley continued. “We just have to keep ourselves in that top-five conversation like we have done, and in a couple key scenarios, turn up the wick a little bit with aggression.

“Do we have to win? Of course, you’re always trying to win every weekend. But I think I would be very happy with a bunch of podium trophies, and then the big trophy at the end of the year which has eluded our group a few times.

“It would definitely be a great feeling to finally win one.”