Photography by Dave Green
Is 2025 Roger Penske’s year? Based on his sports car team’s performance at the opening Rolex 24 At Daytona, and here at the second race of the IMSA season, March’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, it sure looks like it.
Penske, referred to as “The Captain” by his motorsports contemporaries, has everything money can buy (Forbes pegs his worth at $5.6 billion), and Team Penske has succeeded in winning most every important race or championship he’s ever gone after.
But there’s one line on Penske’s resumé that remains blank. Since he’s 88, you have to think it needs to be filled in pretty soon. And that’s a win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
“When you think about our team–we’re approaching 600 wins–winning Le Mans would be like 500 of ’em,” Penske told us in a 2022 interview.
Winning Le Mans is never a given for anybody, but this looks like his most competitive opportunity ever. After all, Team Penske’s Porsche 963 GTP car took first and third at the Rolex 24 At Daytona, and at the Twelve Hours of Sebring, his Porsche 963s came in first and second.
Though Sebring is only half as long as the Daytona and Le Mans events, Sebring’s 3.71-mile track is so punishing that the Twelve Hours is considered the most accurate test for any endurance race. If something doesn’t fall off, burn down or seize up at Sebring, you’re likely going to be fine for June’s Le Mans at the 8.5-mile Circuit de la Sarthe in France.
Of course, there are other issues that must be avoided for a win at Le Mans, such as crashing or simply not going fast enough–and so far, Penske seems to have even that covered.
Kévin Estre, driver of the second-place No. 6 Penske Porsche at Sebring, said this immediately after the race: “A great day for the team. 1-2. Very strong operation. No mistakes in the pits. No penalties. No contact. This shows that we were all doing a good job.”
“I’ll talk about the roll we’re on,” said Nick Tandy, driver of the No. 7 Porsche 963, which won Sebring and Daytona. “You rarely see a sports team or an operation that does a single event without any faults or mistakes. We’ve just been celebrating with probably 40 people that have flawlessly run a car for 36 hours, obviously Daytona and Sebring combined. It’s a testament to what Porsche and Porsche Penske have put together as a group of people that allows us to go racing and have this success without a mistake.” It sounds like Team Penske has checked pretty much every box it can.
The Sebring win was accomplished by Britain’s Tandy, Brazilian Felipe Nasr and Laurens Vanthoor from Belgium, the same trio that won Daytona. In second place, 2.239 seconds back, was Penske Porsche No. 6 driven by Matt Campbell from Australia and Frenchmen Mathieu Jaminet and Estre. That team finished third at Daytona, bracketing the No. 60 Meyer Shank Acura.
Two other big winners from Sebring: Rexy, perhaps the world’s most popular Porsche 911, and Winward Racing’s Mercedes-AMG GT3.
So, is Penske ready for the 93rd running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans? “I think the car and the team and the drivers, everybody involved in the project, has shown so far what we’re capable of,” winning driver Vanthoor said. “It’s the ultimate level, Le Mans. It’s the ultimate showdown. Yeah, I think it’s quite apparent that we have everything in place to be successful.”
But in the past two years, since the introduction of this 963 model, “we haven’t succeeded,” he said of the team’s Le Mans showings. “It’s obviously very clearly the goal of Porsche, of Roger Penske, the whole organization, of us,” said Vanthoor.
The Ferrari 499P won Le Mans in 2023 and 2024. Finishing second both years was the Toyota GR010. Those two cars race regularly in the FIA World Endurance Championship overseas, but not here in IMSA, so the two American Penske Porsches haven’t really benchmarked against their toughest competition for Le Mans.
But Penske also has a two-car WEC Porsche team, and Porsche finished the 2024 manufacturers’ championship second to Toyota, but only two points back. Toyotas won four WEC races last year, Penske Porsches won three, and Ferraris won only one, but it was the one that counted–Le Mans. None of the other six manufacturers in that WEC class won at all.
“Yeah,” said the low-key Vanthoor, “let’s see if this year is the year. We’re definitely trying. But we’re not the only ones.”
This Sebring was especially frustrating for defending champion Wayne Taylor Racing, which fields two Cadillacs, Nos. 10 and 40, in the top GTP class. The 40 car, which won last year when Taylor was racing Acuras, retired before the end of the race, while the No. 10 finished, albeit in seventh. Team owner Taylor blamed IMSA officiating for the No. 10’s poor finish this year. His son, Ricky, was driving during the first hour of the event when IMSA penalized the team for punting a slower Ferrari into the wall.
But Wayne Taylor insists there was no contact, taking to IMSA Radio for a lengthy harangue, insisting that he’d seen video that exonerated his son. “We looked at the footage. He never touched the car. Ricky said he never touched the car. And the race director’s response was that he made a ‘bad call.’” The team served the penalty, a stop-and-park in the pits for 60 seconds, but was never able to regain its earlier momentum.
In all, the 2025 Twelve Hours was an unusually smooth race, with lengthy periods of green-flag racing. The winners in all four classes were decisively ahead when the checkered flag flew, with only one late-race pass, and that was in the GTD class. With 14 minutes left, Philip Ellis, driving the defending champion Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, eased inside the leading Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 driven by Jack Hawksworth. Ellis then shoved Hawksworth out of the way in a distinctively NASCAR-esque move and went on to win.
After the race, Ellis defended the pass. “Obviously there was some rubbing here and there. That’s part of good racing. Nothing was over the limit. Just used whatever I had to use,” he said, then went on to suggest that Hawksworth deserved it. “I understand that he’s not super happy with it. To be honest, I just gave him back what he gave me a couple laps before in Turn 7. Hey, we all know Jack. I have a lot of respect for him. He’s a great guy. But that’s how he races. You reap what you sow.”
As you might guess, Hawksworth disagreed. “I don’t mind hip and shoulder, but he ran into the back of me and moved me out of the way,” he told Sportscar365. “So, look, he’s got one coming. That’s racing. Obviously, I’m disappointed.” Finishing third in GTD behind the Mercedes and the Lexus was the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.
Circle June 14-15 in red on your calendar for Le Mans. You can bet Roger Penske already has.
I didn't have much hope for the concept when the hypercar class first started getting press in 2018. It has turned out to be way cooler than I ever expected.
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In reply to nderwater :
And they look soooo good on track–especially at night.
The Porsche was strangely uncompetitive at the Qatar race, so it appears that they have some hurdles to overcome in the WEC races before LeMans.
You know, I never considered if Roger Penske has a Le Mans win. I always assumed he had one because of all the success he's had in everything else he's done. It would be nice to add a Le Mans victory to one incredible career.
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