IMSA MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 3, 2026

Kevin Estre

Matt Campbell

Laurens Vanthoor

Dries Vanthoor

Robin Frijns

Sheldon van der Linde

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Now we're joined by our overall in GTP class winners here. Kevin Estre, Matt Campbell and Laurens Vanthoor.

Kevin, your first victory in IMSA. What does it mean to you?

KEVIN ESTRE: It means a lot, definitely, I start to get old. Finally is good to get this first victory.

Yeah, I've come close many times actually in this race and never happened. But this one was a really hard one. We fought very hard with many, many competitors during the race. A lot of setbacks with some unfortunate penalties at the beginning.

Strategy didn't go the right way. The yellow came at the wrong spot, everything. It was really tough to get back up to the front when we were on the back of the field. It was tough for us to pass.

We knew we had a good car in clean air, but difficult to pass. Yeah, finally we were in the mix towards the end with the car which was not really in one piece, but somewhere there (smiling). Laurens made an amazing, amazing double stint towards the end with some incredible passing, no mistakes.

Yeah, it was really, really good, really nice to watch. So thank you, Laurens, man of the race.

Again, Matt, always super precise, no mistakes. He's there. He saved fuel, saved tires. Yeah, tire whisperer as the engineers are saying (smiling).

Really glad to clinch the victory with these two guys in our final race together probably. We are parting ways a bit next year.

Yeah, very glad about that.

THE MODERATOR: Matt, two previous class wins here, but this is an overall victory. How much more special is that?

MATT CAMPBELL: Yeah, much more special. I think I've been on podium also three times in GTP here. We've always been strong, but always missed that top step. Been fantastic to get an overall win here. Obviously awesome parting gift as well. My last race for Porsche, too. To get a last overall victory with Porsche at a race where they haven't achieved one for a long time.

Larry did a fantastic job at the end of the race, some of the best driving I've ever seen from him, and really brought it home.

So I just did the awkward middle part of race, the red flag, trying to save energy as much as possible. These two guys did the work. I was in the middle doing the awkward stuff.

THE MODERATOR: Larry, obviously the last few hours, pretty chaotic. How was it from your seat?

LAURENS VANTHOOR: Yeah, I need to watch highlights of the race to remember everything. Sometimes things just go by itself. Yeah, sounds stupid because that's what I always say, you're in the zone, you're not thinking about anything. For multiple reasons why not only myself but we really wanted to win this race. Yeah, sights were set on that. It was all or nothing.

It was absolutely fun. It feels very good because we had a tough year on car No. 6, not what we hoped for. What we've seen from the outside in terms of results didn't always reflect the good work we were doing behind the scenes which nobody really saw besides people in the team.

I think this is a very nice way to end the season. We ticked off a lot of boxes for Porsche, for Penske, the three of us. For myself, was a dream of me in America to win. Absolutely incredible day. I think with Kevin and Matt, we've had our success together, won more championship races, finished second in Le Mans. Like Kevin said, this is for now probably our last race together. To end it in style is pretty sweet.

THE MODERATOR: We'll slide over to your brother and his team, Dries Vanthoor, Robin Frijns, Sheldon van der Linde.

Dries, how much does this help you as you head into the off-season here?

DRIES VANTHOOR: I think it's nice to end it on a high. Obviously we would have loved to win today. Yeah, you guys were just a bit too quick today. We did the best we could. We have to settle for second.

To not forget as well that we built the team from now maybe one year back. We built the team in a couple months' time. We arrived in Daytona just about on time. To now see the progress we did during the season, to end with a win in Indy, a second place here, I think it's a great achievement, a great upward-trending line. Hopefully we can keep building on that for next year.

THE MODERATOR: Robin, your second podium here in the WeatherTech Championship. What does it mean for you?

ROBIN FRIJNS: First of all, it's good to be back. I'm the endurance driver, hop in for the long races. The goal is obviously to have a clean race, don't do any mistakes. I think lap five I go off, so that was not the plan. I was trying everything to recover my mistake, which I think I did pretty well after that.

We were fighting for -- I was fighting for the lead together with Aitken, give the car to Sheldon at the end. He was pushing very hard to put a lot of pressure on Laurens. As we know, I think the Porsche during the weekend was already the car to beat. It was very visible in the race, as well.

We're getting closer. Hopefully for next year we can raise our game a bit more.

THE MODERATOR: Sheldon, take us through the closing laps there. How many times did you feel like you might have had a shot at him?

SHELDON VAN DER LINDE: Yeah, it's probably not enough, to be honest. I came really close into turn one once about 20 minutes to go. I was very far back. Obviously Laurens didn't see me coming because I was two seconds behind. He got stuck in GT traffic in the last corner. I thought I got lucky there. He saw me coming at the very last minute, closed the door. That's probably the best shot we had in the last half an hour.

Congrats to them. Laurens made no mistakes, took a lot of risk in traffic, which is needed for both of us to try and get this win today. Hats off to him. Not every day that you see we take so much risk and it pays off in terms of keeping the car on track, keeping it fair, safe.

I'm just proud of the team. We finished second in Le Mans this year by 10 seconds, now second in Petit Le Mans with three seconds or two seconds, whatever it is.

It's bittersweet, to be honest. I feel like we've come really close to some really good highlights this year and dreams of mine that I've had since I was a kid.

If we look at the trend from last year, how much we've improved as a team, that's something to take with us. We can be disappointed with second today. Coming that close is never a great feeling, to be honest.

Dries said we both have a brand-new team from the very beginning. We can be proud of that, to be honest. I'm hoping we can take this momentum into Daytona next year, try to fight for the championship. That's clearly our goal. It was our goal this year, as well. Too many niggles along the way, if you can call it that. It was a learning year for us. The next year I'm pretty sure we'll be fighting for something very, very good.

THE MODERATOR: We'll go to questions.

Q. Laurens, thoughts on how the car felt towards the end of the race in the final stint. A bit of a hit from the incident. Did it impact your car at all?

LAURENS VANTHOOR: There wasn't any contact, no, that I know of (smiling). Not with the 7. There was some side-to-side contact with other overtakes.

The car felt all right. Obviously had a bit of a beating. At the end of the race it was a bit interesting because we had to save fuel, and it was also close, to go one lap further. At one point they were asking me to save fuel, try and reduce the pace, keep the BMW behind. That was a bit much.

But no, the car was good. We were very strong in sector two. Our weakness was a bit on the straights. That's why we always had to make our strategy work and be aggressive on the restarts because that was our only chance we had to overtake.

Luckily it all worked out, yeah.

Q. Kevin, we talked about this possibility on Thursday. Curious, from the standpoint of thinking back to what you went through at Sebring, how difficult it was. Then also thinking about what's happened since then for you, some of the run-ins, the clashes, led to probation at one point. Race control talking about a potential suspension. To go through all of that, what this year has been for you? What is the gratification from getting the first win?

KEVIN ESTRE: Yeah, Sebring was very tough, that's for sure. We wanted the victory there and we didn't get it. P2 was good for the team, but that's not what 6 wanted. I think it's been enough written about it.

But yeah, the year has been tough. Definitely after this probation on me for the last two races, it was difficult to handle, to be honest, in the car, especially this race, having so much traffic, so much risk to take. Sometimes you have to take risks. You cannot just sit and wait for the next corner.

It was not easy as a mindset. I'm glad the team had my back there. I'm glad that I took the right decision at the right time.

But yeah, I'm definitely very happy that this probation is gone and that I start from scratch next year in Daytona, try to stay clean, of course.

But we had to take a lot of risks to pass people the whole year, to be honest. At least since Sebring. It's a lot on us as drivers, which put the race director in a weird or difficult position, which I understand. But it was definitely not easy from time to time on us, on driver, because we have a fast car. To pass you need to be in that position. We were always a bit on the back foot there.

Q. We saw a record 16 cautions tonight, which is two more than the record. Can any of you talk about the racing, whether it's the quality of racing? What led to what we ended up seeing tonight?

LAURENS VANTHOOR: Honestly, I think it was a bit overdramatized by people. Go and try to drive the last two hours in the dark at Atlanta with so many cars and such a short track with championships and big victories on the line, the pressure of winning races. Speed differences between professional drivers, amateur drivers, change of conditions, smoke, rain, whatever.

Yes, there's hard racing. Sometimes it goes over the line. But that's what we're here for, to win these races, everybody going all out. If you want boring races where we all drive behind each other, no passes, nothing happens, if that's what everybody prefers, I don't think it's more exciting.

Yes, sometimes it goes over the line and stuff happens, we have a lot of yellows. It's also a bit of a show, right (smiling)?

THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, we'll let you continue your celebrations.