No changes to Winward's line-up for 2027 IMSA season

As Winward Racing prepares to battle for its third consecutive IMSA WeatherTech GTD Championship title, the team has confirmed its entry into the 2027 season with an unchanged line-up.

Team co-owner and driver Russell Ward and Mercedes-AMG factory Performance Driver, Philip Ellis, will continue to drive full-time in the No. 57 Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO in 2027.

“We haven’t started the 2027 prep, but the 2027 prep will start the day that we get back (from Road Atlanta),” said Ward. 

Ward and Ellis have led Winward Racing to two GTD championships and 15 race victories since the team’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship debut in 2021, including three Rolex 24 At Daytona wins, and two wins at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

Winward has won the last two GTD championships, and at next week’s Motul Petit Le Mans, the team from Pasadena, Texas could become the first team since Scuderia Corsa to win three GTD titles in a row – and the first team to do it with the same driver pairing all three years.

“I think 2026 has been one of our best years,” said Ward, whose team came back from a 300-point deficit after the Six Hours of the Glen with three straight victories to eventually take the lead in the championship.

“We’ve had some bad luck at the start of the season with Sebring and Watkins Glen. To be honest, I think it would not be out of the realm to say that if we hadn’t have had those issues, we’d be another 200 points ahead. A top-five finish in both of those rounds was definitely possible. That would put us in, you know, basically the same form that we had in 2024 and 2025. 

“It’s going to come down to Petit Le Mans. It’s definitely one of the more exciting seasons that we’ve had with Winward Racing.”

This year also saw Winward Racing enter a second Mercedes-AMG in GTD Pro at Daytona and Sebring, while the team continues to run in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge. Outside of the IMSA sphere, Winward Racing’s European division has risen to prominence as the service provider for four-time Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen’s GT racing team in SRO competition.

Winward took overall victory at this year’s 24 Hours of Nürburgring, and the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup title, while in DTM, Winward driver Maro Engel currently sits second in the championship heading into the final race weekend at the Hockenheimring.