The Four-Hour Form for Herta Hyundai Continues in TCR
A winless 2025 season in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge did not sit well with Robin Liddell and Frank DePew.
In fact, the streak stretched nearly two years, since March 2024 at Sebring International Raceway. But Liddell and DePew, assisted by Andrew Davis, righted that wrong Friday at Daytona International Speedway by taking the Grand Sport (GS) class and overall victory in the BMW M Endurance Challenge to open the 2026 campaign.
Liddell took the No. 71 Rebel Rock Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4 Evo across the line ahead of the similar No. 14 Aston Martin fielded by Circle H Racing and driven by David Hampton, Thomas Merrill, and Martin Sarukhanyan by 2.691 seconds, with Bryce Ward and Daan Arrow trailing by 23.365 seconds in third in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT GT4.
With 18 GS wins, Liddell ranks fifth all time in Michelin Pilot Challenge competition, while DePew has partnered the 52-year-old Scotsman for nine of those victories. Surprisingly, this marked Liddell’s first Daytona win in Michelin Pilot Challenge, beating his best result of second in 2015, a season where he and Davis won the GS championship. He is a past Rolex 24 class winner in GT in 2004, finishing second overall.
This one came from deep in the 35-car field – the Rebel Rock Aston started 22nd and dropped to 33rd place on the opening lap – and was sparked by the decision to take four tires in the last pit stop rather than trying to save time by mounting just two.
Liddell passed Merrill for the lead with 17 minutes remaining in the first of two four-hour events on the 10-race Michelin Pilot Challenge slate and pulled away to the finish. Meanwhile, Arrow rallied the No. 57 Mercedes-AMG to a podium finish as the Motul Pole Award-winning No. 13 McCumbee McAleer Racing Ford Mustang GT4 of Nate Cicero and Robert Noaker faded to sixth place in the closing laps.
“Happy days! Daytona has been not the best event for us over the years,” Liddell reflected. “I was very fortunate to win on the first time I was here in the Rolex 24. I thought I had it easy. Now it’s 22 years later and I think it’s the first win I’ve had here since that one.
“The Aston was phenomenal and the guys did a super job,” he continued. “Frank had a couple issues on the opening lap but gathered it together to gain some positions and hand it over to Andrew, who did a hell of a job. Everybody just did their thing. We’ve got a great team, and I think today showed that we can execute everything well when we had to.”
Liddell paid tribute to the decision to take four tires when the No. 71 car made its final pit stop one lap after the No. 14 car stopped and only took two.
“I’ve worked with Mike Johnson, who is the strategist on that (No. 14) car for a number of years, and I think they went for the undercut,” Liddell observed. “It was a quick stop, but we took enough fuel because I don’t like gambling on a yellow that might never come. We’ve got a kick-ass set of guys on the wheels and our guys bust our tire changes very quickly, so it was a no-brainer for us to take on four tires.
“It took a long time to run him down, but obviously, eventually we got some breaks here and there in traffic,” he smiled. “He finally made a wee mistake into Turn 1, and I was able to sneak up the inside.”
“It’s amazing,” DePew added. “We’ve had some really bad luck at Daytona in the past, and I can’t believe that we came here and won this race like this. It was a straight-up race; there was no crazy strategy, it was just good driving, good strategy, and we executed amazingly.”
TCR: Dupont, Brown Continue Four-Hour Form with Herta Hyundai
Cupra started fast. Honda looked fresh. Hyundai finished first.
Three of the four Touring Car (TCR) manufacturers factored in Friday’s four-hour BMW M Endurance Challenge at various points. But once again, the champions from Bryan Herta Autosport with Curb Agajanian and its fleet of Hyundai Elantra N TCRs prevailed and did so in nearly as dramatic fashion as in 2025.
Denis Dupont and Preston Brown have gone back-to-back at Daytona, sharing the No. 76 Herta Hyundai, continuing their run of top form in four-hour races. They won at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in 2024 and Daytona in 2025, while coming second at Mid-Ohio in 2025. They only have one two-hour race win, at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in 2025.
The first three hours saw a high volume of yellow-flag running, and the race really came into its own in the last 90 minutes – or the majority of a standard-length two-hour Michelin Pilot Challenge race.
The polesitting Cupra and its counterparts fell by the wayside early with a myriad of penalties and incidents in the opening stanza, leaving their pace without a result for the day.
It appeared as though Mario Farnbacher would capitalize in a stand-in role at Pegram Racing, in the No. 72 Honda Civic FL5 TCR he shared with Riley Pegram. The younger Pegram, daughter of Larry, raced with Farnbacher this race as he stood in for the recuperating Larry.
Farnbacher held off Bryson Morris in the No. 33 Herta Hyundai, before its final scheduled pit stop where it all came awry. The No. 72 car was assessed a drive-through penalty for tires without crew and then went off course at Turn 6 after the penalty was assessed after a right front tire went down.
While Morris moved into the lead, Dupont then got ahead of Morris with 16 minutes to go. Exiting Turn 3, Dupont got a stronger run to Morris’ outside, attempted the pass into the kink and completed it at Turn 5. The ensuing momentum coupled with Morris’ slightly slower exit opened the door for Cameron Lawrence to capitalize at the next corner, going around the outside of the Morris on NASCAR 1 and 2 to go into second.
Dupont reflected on the move, a year after he’d also beat the same No. 33 Herta Hyundai in a photo finish to secure Herta’s first team win at Daytona. This was a much larger margin of victory though; Dupont beat Morris by 0.408 of a second today, after winning over Morris’ then-teammate Mark Wilkins by 0.067 of a second last year.
“It’s great to do it twice in a row, pretty unique,” Dupont said. “It was pretty clean with Bryson. I think we fought for more than two hours. He was amazing to battle.”
Brown described his view from the pit stand, as the sole co-driver with Dupont this race. Herta’s other three Hyundai entries all took advantage of the four-hour race to add a third driver.
“I was focusing pretty hard because it’s great TCR racing,” Brown said. “The first three cars were nose-to-tail forever! It shows how well IMSA is doing with this series. Denis was biding his time. Two years ago we ran a third, and we finished second, and it was fine. I think it’s more that Denis and I are clicking, and we didn’t want to put anything new in the equation.”
Lawrence, a past Rolex 24 class winner (2015 in Grand Touring Daytona) shared his second place No. 89 HART Honda Civic FL5 TCR with Chad Gilsinger and Tyler Chambers. An emotional and jubilant Lawrence celebrated with his family in victory lane moments after making the pass for second.
“That was a lot of fun!” Lawrence said. “We had some rough luck at the start, and not a great setup. We’d gotten a meatball flag and lost a lap. Then you just go and drive and hope it goes your way. That’s the kind of race you dream of; a ton of fun.”
Gilsinger, a Michelin Pilot Challenge veteran and race winner, noted how the similar veteran HART team enjoyed a return to form after a run of tough races in their part-time schedule. The podium is HART’s first at Daytona since winning in ST in 2006, 20 years ago.
“I think I paced up and down pit lane at least 20 times,” Gilsinger laughed. “I was just saying when I got out, the luck had not been with us. We’d had suspension loose, gearbox leak. I knew we had the drivers and crew, and Cameron overcame the luck today!”
Morris finished third in the No. 33 Hyundai he shared with full-season co-driver Mason Filippi, who’s set to run the Rolex 24 At Daytona tomorrow in the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette Z06 GT3.R in Grand Touring Daytona (GTD), and series debutante Joshua Buchan of Australia.
The Michelin Pilot Challenge season resumes with the Alan Jay Automotive Network 120 from Sebring International Raceway on March 20.
