Just one race into the 2024 season – and on the eve of the Sebring 12 Hours – IMSA President John Doonan shared next year’s slate of events, which also included Pilot Challenge.

Next year will once again feature an 11-race season, including five endurance rounds that make up the Endurance Cup. 

“On behalf of my teammates at IMSA, I am proud to be able to announce our schedule for 2025 at such an early date,” said Doonan.

“This was made possible through a great spirit of collaboration with our promoter partners, and we are grateful to them for enabling us to make our 2025 plans known today. Putting next year’s schedule into everybody’s hands so soon allows fans, competitors and partners to get well ahead in planning for an amazing 2025 season, even with so much of our 2024 season still to come.”

Per usual, the season will begin with the season-opening Daytona 24 Hours on Jan. 23-26, which will be preceded by the Roar Before the 24 the weekend before, Jan. 17-19.

A trek to Sebring International Raceway for the 12-hour enduro is set for March 12-15. The Daytona and Sebring events both will include all four SportsCar Championship classes: Grand Touring Prototype (GTP), Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2), Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD Pro) and Grand Touring Daytona (GTD).

GTP and GTD will then head west to take part in a 100-minute battle on the Streets of Long Beach April 11-12. Then, May 9-11, GTD Pro will join the GTP and GTD for a two-hour, 40-minute contest at Laguna Seca.

From there, it’s back to the streets of downtown Detroit and another 100-minute battle as part of the Detroit Grand Prix for the GTP and GTD Pro classes on May 30-31.

A six-hour endurance bout at Watkins Glen looms in its typical late June slot, with all classes taking part June 26-29.

LMP2, GTD Pro and GTD will be showcased at Mosport July 11-13 in the series’ lone trip to Canada.

All four classes return to action on the weekend of July 31-Aug. 3 for the annual visit to Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.

Virginia International Raceway will be the lone GT-only race, with the GTD Pro and GTD classes stepping into the spotlight on Aug. 22-24.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway continues to host the penultimate rounds of both the SportsCar Championship and Endurance Cup with the Battle on the Bricks six-hour race scheduled for the weekend of Sept. 19-21.

The finale will once again take place at Road Atlanta, which will be Oct. 8-11 for the 10-hour classic Petit Le Mans.

IMSA 2025 race schedule

Photo by: IMSA

Watch: BrrrakeF1 — Under the Skin of Endurance Racing’s Advanced Tech

British driver Phil Hanson set the fastest overall time during the session, putting down a1:48.149s while driving the No. 85 JDC-Miller Porsche 963. That was just a tenth or so quicker than Renger van der Zande’s P1 time from the earlier practice.

Sebastien Bourdais was second-fastest in the No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R, trailing Hanson by 0.236s. Another Cadillac was third with Pipo Derani in the No. 31 Action Express Caddy, a further 0.334s behind Hanson.

The LMP2 class was led by Josh Burdon in the No. 74 Riley entry, ending the session at a 1:52.714s. Just like the morning session, the Vasser Sullivan Lexus drivers were in complete control of the GT field. The No. 12 Lexus RC F GT3, piloted by Parker Thompson, led the GTD class and overall, posting a time of 2:00.237s. The No. 14 Lexus was right behind him with Jack Hawksworth leading all Pro drivers with a lap of 2:00.304s.

#14 VasserSullivan Lexus RC F GT3: Jack Hawksworth, Ben Barnicoat, Kyle Kirkwood

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

Davide Rigon forced a red flag when his Risi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 stopped on track mid-session, but only briefly as he was able to re0fire the car soon after. That was the only stoppage.

Romain Grosjean also appeared to have a bit of a moment in the No. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini, going off-track but quickly gathering the car up without major incident.

Only two of the 58 entries failed to set a time and they were the No. 64 and No. 65 Ford Mustang GT3s, both belonging to Multimatic Motorsports.

The third and final practice of the day is scheduled to take place at 7:45pm EST.

Watch: BrrrakeF1 — The Tech Behind the Most Exciting Racing on the Planet

PPM claimed victory in both the opening rounds of the IMSA SportsCar Championship at Daytona’s Rolex 24 and the World Endurance Championship in Qatar with its LMDh 963 prototype.

But Diuguid warned that its streak could end this Saturday, with the second round of IMSA’s so-called ‘36 Hours of Florida’ on the former airbase that’s renowned as a car breaker.

“Looking at the first two races of 2024, I think it’s one decision or choice by a driver and then we don’t finish where we did,” said Diuguid. “It was a tight race in Daytona and in Qatar we had some light drama with on-contact with another car, and I think if either of those situations goes a different way then we have different outcomes.

“As a group we have to be excited when things come together and we succeed, like in Daytona and Qatar, but we’ve got to keep pushing because it’s one mistake away from the wheels falling off – for the lack of a better description! – so we’ve got to keep focused and looking forward.

“Look what happened at Sebring last year: Dane [Cameron] got run into under yellow and the back of the car got torn off, and Nick [Tandy] had the fire extinguisher go off. So that all happened even before we got to leading the race with 30 minutes to go [before the big crash that took both cars out].”

#7 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Matt Campbell, Felipe Nasr, Michael Christensen wrecks in closing moments of Sebring 12 Hours

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

Porsche’s Balance of Performance numbers have been changed by IMSA ahead of this weekend, the 963 being trimmed of 2kg to 1049kg, but it’s been stung by a 11kW (14bhp) power reduction.

“The car is performing very well at the moment, the team has got on top of a lot of things,” said Tandy. “We’re hopeful and done our homework, but there have been some changes in the BoP, so we’ll see. We go there in high spirits and with high hopes because we know how well prepared we are.”

When asked by Motorsport.com to compare the challenges between Daytona and Sebring, Tandy added: “Obviously they are very different racetracks. What’s required out of the cars differs a lot, the biggest difference being Daytona’s [track surface] flat as well as being fast.

“At Sebring, the speed of the car and how it works is dictated by riding the bumps. We’ve been to Sebring testing this year, along with some of the other teams, and we’ve obviously made progress from being there last year.

“It’s very difficult to tell from those tests how we compare to the others, we really won’t know until the race starts – that classic cliché! – and last year we struggled more in the day than we did in the evening.”

Rolex 24 winners: #7 Team Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Dane Cameron, Felipe Nasr, Matt Campbell, Josef Newgarden

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

Cameron, who was on the Daytona-winning crew that included Felipe Nasr, Matt Campbell and Josef Newgarden, added: “As Nick said, we had a pretty good Sebring test and will arrive with a good benchmark, certainly good progress from the year before when it was difficult, but we still found ourselves in a good position at the end.

“Hopefully we can maintain our trajectory for the program at the moment.

“I think with what we’ve learned, and how we’ve honed in on how the car wants to operate, I feel like we’re in with a pretty decent chance. But everyone else is pushing and developing as well.”

Watch: BrrrakeF1 — The Tech Behind the Most Exciting Racing on the Planet