Has Heinrich saved the best part of a dream season for last?

Porsche driver Laurin Heinrich faces a difficult task to try and overtake IMSA GTP championship rival Jack Aitken in the standings and win the title in Saturday’s Motul Petit Le Mans. There’s a chance he could even be shut out of contention before the race even starts, if qualifying doesn’t go according to plan the day before.

But no matter the outcome of Saturday’s race, Heinrich has no regrets about how his 2026 season has gone.

“I could have not envisioned or imagined being in this situation right now,” Heinrich said ahead of Petit Le Mans. “And now, well, we are here! Who would have thought, driving three different cars, six podiums out of eight races so far is great. I’ve won Daytona and Sebring, which is a dream come true. Thinking back to the start of the year where I thought I would only do the long races, so far to win two is something crazy, and I’m really thankful for the chance.

“I think I have developed a lot in the process of it: I’ve become a better driver, a more complete driver, getting all this experience from prototype racing. 147 points behind is not easy to catch up, but we all know at Motul Petit Le Mans, anything can happen in that race – and I won’t give up until the checkered flag falls.”

Championship or not, Heinrich has still surpassed great expectations in his first season of racing the Porsche 963 in IMSA – not even considering that his first season in GTP was only meant to consist of three races with Porsche Penske Motorsport. But Heinrich won the Rolex 24 At Daytona and Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in succession, Porsche soon realized it couldn’t just make its rising star wait until October to drive its 963 again.

Three races became nine thanks to a mid-season deal with privateer team JDC-Miller MotorSports, where the young German driver’s legend grew thanks to a brilliant final-lap overtake at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. That gave JDC-Miller a memorable first GTP win, and improbably gave Heinrich the lead in the GTP drivers’ championship. Podium finishes at Watkins Glen – where he was never meant to race at first – and Road America made it impossible to leave him out of championship discussions.

Heinrich was the driving force in JDC-Miller’s first GTP win at Laguna Seca. Michael Levitt/IMSA

“For sure, I compete to win; this IMSA title, it developed throughout the year as my primary goal, and I’m living every day for that,” Heinrich said. “The first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I think about going to bed at night is exactly that. It would mean a lot.

“But still, finishing second is a great result and I would still look back happily and proud of the year we’ve done at this point. I want to thank Porsche for giving me this opportunity to give me the best opportunities to fight for this title. It really means a lot to me that the manufacturer respects the drivers’ championship, even if we’re just fighting on our own in this title fight.”

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It’s been a great year for Heinrich outside of IMSA, too. In June, he made his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut and helped CrowdStrike Racing by APR dominate the LMP2 Pro/Am class. In September, he reunited with his old GTD Pro team AO Racing (in partnership with leading Porsche Asia-Pacific customer Absolute Racing) and led them to a dominant win in the Suzuka 1000km.

And there’s still more history Heinrich could make on Saturday, alongside fellow Daytona and Sebring winners Felipe Nasr and Julien Andlauer. Winning the Daytona 24 Hours, 12 Hours of Sebring and Petit Le Mans in the same calendar year has never been done overall, and the number of drivers that have done it in lower categories can be counted on one hand. Nasr, Andlauer and Heinrich – the drivers of the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 – can make a special piece of IMSA history by completing the series’ Triple Crown.

“It would be a tremendous result, especially considering it’s my first year in GTP,” Heinrich said of that potential history in the making. “To already have the opportunity to do that within the same year is something special. We were already speaking about it; we want to go out and win that race because it would be a tremendous end to a still-successful year. The No. 7 is not in the championship fight any more, so for sure, the goal of our group is just to go out there and win the race.”

“If I look back at our endurance races, especially Daytona and Sebring, we’ve done an incredible job as a trio with Felipe and Julian. I’m looking forward to be back with these two guys and have the unique chance to win all three big races, all together, because that’s how we started.”

Daytona and Sebring have been the big reason why the No. 7 Porsche Penske crew have all but sealed the three Michelin Endurance Cup titles in GTP. Heinrich should win the drivers’ cup when the No. 7 car rolls off on Saturday via his results with JDC-Miller at Watkins Glen and Road America, but his co-driver Andlauer’s sudden back issue on the morning of the race means that’s only 99 percent certain, instead of 100.

How fitting that it comes down to Road Atlanta in the end. It’s where Heinrich first raced in the U.S. during the last round of the 2022 Porsche Carrera Cup North America series, it’s where he and AO Racing held on to clinch the 2024 IMSA GTD Pro title in his first full season in the U.S., and last year, it’s where he first tested the Porsche 963 in advance of the year to come.

And what a year it’s been.