Philip Ellis made the pass that mattered with less than 30 minutes remaining. A restart, full commitment, and the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 grabbed a lead it wouldn’t relinquish. Sunday’s inaugural Six-Hour SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix at Road America gave Winward its third GTD victory of the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar season. No other team in the class has more than one.
That stat alone tells you who is peaking at the right time.
Winward came into Elkhart Lake sitting fourth in points, 207 behind the class leaders. They left Road America in second, just 24 points off the top. A 183-point swing in a single weekend, born from clean racing, sharp pit stops, and a fuel strategy that stretched just far enough.
Russell Ward, Ellis, and Indy Dontje split driving duties across the six hours. Ward set the tone, keeping the car in contention from the opening stint. Dontje held station through the middle hours without putting a scratch on the bodywork. Ellis closed.
The No. 57 only led 12 laps all day. Two other GTD entries spent more time at the front. None of that mattered when Ellis planted the car in first on a restart and held it through two more late cautions, the race eventually finishing under a dual yellow-and-checkered flag.
“I just went all in on the last two or three restarts,” Ellis said. “If there was another yellow, they would have had track position and we would have lost the win.”
It was a calculated gamble from a team that has learned hard lessons this year. Ward didn’t mince words about what had gone wrong earlier in the season: other competitors’ poor driving had taken them out in multiple endurance races. The Rolex 24 victory at Daytona in January had been followed by a painful stretch of misfortune that had nothing to do with the car’s pace.
“When we can have some semi-clean racing, this is what this team is capable of,” Ward said.
Back-to-back wins, following last month’s victory at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, have completely rewritten Winward’s championship math. The team is chasing a third consecutive GTD title. Two months ago that looked like a pipe dream. Now it looks like momentum.
The pit crew deserves a share of the credit. Ellis pointed to them directly, noting that Winward gained positions on nearly every stop. In endurance racing, the margins come from everywhere, and a crew that can shave seconds on four tires and fuel adds up over six hours.
Lone Star Racing gave Mercedes-AMG a second car in the results with a seventh-place finish. The No. 80, driven by Scott Andrews, Lin Hodenius, and James Roe Jr., has quietly built one of the most consistent records in the GTD Endurance Cup. Lone Star has completed every racing lap in all four Michelin Endurance Cup rounds this season, a feat matched only by the overall championship leaders.
Their best result remains a fourth at Sebring in March. Hodenius, racing Road America for the first time, said the pace was there for more but traffic on the four-mile circuit bit them late. “Considering the pace we had, we should have been more up there,” he said.
The GTD field heads to VIRginia International Raceway August 21 through 23. Winward will arrive as the hottest team in the class, carrying a two-race win streak and a 24-point deficit that is entirely within striking range.
A third straight championship is no longer a long shot. It is a fight, and Winward is the one throwing punches.
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