The 2026 IMSA Esports Global Championship begins today, September 27, with the Kinetic 240 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. A 52-car field featuring 20 GTP prototypes and 32 GTD cars will contest the 2-hour, 40-minute season opener, beginning an expanded five-round championship with a $25,000 prize pool.
The official IMSA esports championship returns for its fifth season in collaboration with iRacing and the Virtual Competition Organisation. Road Atlanta opens a schedule that will subsequently visit Sebring, Watkins Glen, WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and Daytona, with races taking place every other Sunday through November 22.
Points will be awarded in both qualifying and the race, adding extra importance to outright pace before the 52-car field even reaches Turn 1. The championship continues to mirror IMSA’s multiclass endurance format, with GTP prototypes having to negotiate a considerably larger GTD field throughout each event.
Today’s broadcast begins with Countdown to Green at 1:45 p.m. ET / 17:45 UTC, before race coverage starts at 2:00 p.m. ET / 18:00 UTC. That corresponds to a 20:00 start in Central European Summer Time.
52 Cars Across GTP and GTD at Road Atlanta
The opening round features one of the largest grids in top-level sim racing. Twenty entries will compete for the GTP championship while 32 cars make up the GTD field, creating constant traffic around Road Atlanta’s 2.54-mile, 12-turn layout.
The GTP entry list includes several of the most recognizable organizations in professional sim racing. BMW M Verstappen Sim Racing enters the No. 1 BMW M Hybrid V8, while Verstappen Sim Racing also fields the No. 33 BMW. Porsche is represented by Coanda Esports and the Porsche Coanda Esports Racing Team, while BMW M Team BS COMPETITION also joins the prototype field.
Acura ARX-06, BMW M Hybrid V8, Cadillac V-Series.R and Porsche 963 machinery will all compete, while the latest official Road Atlanta entry list also includes multiple Aston Martin Valkyrie GTP entries from Grid-and-Go.com eSports, Maniti Racing and SOELPEC Precision Racing.
The GTD field is even larger and contains eight different GT3 platforms. Ferrari, BMW, Chevrolet, Ford, Lamborghini, Mercedes-AMG, Porsche and Aston Martin are represented across 32 entries, with teams including Risi Competizione by GnG, MAHLE Racing Team, BMW M Team MOUZ, Vesta Sport and WSR Esports.
IMSA Esports Expands to Five Rounds in 2026
The championship has expanded from its previous format to five events for 2026. Road Atlanta and Sebring return from last season, while Watkins Glen and WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca join the calendar before Daytona hosts the championship finale.
- Round 1 — September 27: Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta
- Round 2 — October 11: Sebring International Raceway
- Round 3 — October 25: Watkins Glen International
- Round 4 — November 8: WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca
- Round 5 — November 22: Daytona International Speedway
All five rounds are scheduled two weeks apart, giving teams time to prepare for significantly different circuit characteristics throughout the season. Road Atlanta’s elevation changes and heavy multiclass traffic are followed by Sebring’s bumps, Watkins Glen’s high-speed sections, Laguna Seca’s technical layout and the draft-heavy Daytona finale.
The expansion also removes the split-class event used during the 2025 season, when GTP and GTD competed separately at Long Beach and Virginia International Raceway. Both classes will now share the same venues throughout the championship.
$25,000 Prize Pool and Two Class Championships
The 2026 IMSA Esports Global Championship retains a total prize pool of $25,000. The leading team in each championship will receive $5,000 at the end of the season, with prizes distributed across the final standings in both GTP and GTD.
BMW M Team Redline enters the season as the defending GTP champion after winning the 2025 title, while Coanda Esports claimed last year’s GTD championship. Their success also provided automatic invitations for the new season, subject to eligibility requirements.
Other teams reached the championship through the VCO Grand Slam and iRacing’s public pre-qualifying system. The latter gave regular iRacing competitors a route into the field through Time Attack qualification before a manufacturer shootout determined car assignments.
The result is a grid combining major factory-supported esports organizations with teams that qualified through open competition, one of the defining elements of the IMSA Esports format.
Road Atlanta Starts the 2026 Title Fight
The Kinetic 240 will run for two hours and 40 minutes, matching the duration traditionally associated with several real-world IMSA sprint-endurance events. Strategy, traffic management and driver consistency will therefore matter alongside outright qualifying speed.
Road Atlanta is particularly unforgiving in multiclass racing. The narrow first sector, blind elevation changes and rapid closing speeds between GTP and GTD machinery create limited opportunities for prototypes to negotiate slower traffic without costing either class significant time.
Qualifying points also mean teams cannot afford to focus exclusively on race setup. Performance before the start will already contribute toward the championship, making every session relevant over a five-round calendar where dropped points can quickly become difficult to recover.
The opening round will be broadcast live through the official IMSA and iRacing channels, with Countdown to Green starting 15 minutes before the Kinetic 240 goes green.
For drivers interested in competing in iRacing themselves, iRacing memberships are available here.
See you on the track!
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