The second race after the BoP reset. They have one race worth of data, and an outlier at that, after all the new car developments.

• The performance from Daytona is well correlated with these changes.
• The changes are influenced by the longer average laps times rather than the fastest laps.
• It is still early days after the off season re-homologations
• Aston Martin driving everyone else’s position.

A small point before we get into this proper, JDC, with its 2025 car, still has the same adjustments as Penske. IMSA have left the door open to adjust for the different characteristics, but at this early stage have chosen not to.

Power to Weight

Back in 2023 there was a general increase to power/weight for all cars between Daytona and Sebring, but relatively the cars remained close to each other. For Sebring that year, we saw differences introduced to individual cars weight which was almost equally compensated by power for each car.

In 2026, Daytona started a higher P/W for all relative to 2023. Unlike at the beginning 2023, there was some variation across P/W this year, but this was very small compared to how 2025 ended. Looking at weight and power separately, the start point in 2026 has some variation, but it is relatively small across different cars.

More variation is being introduced for the second race this year, presumably as IMSA have more experience of what changes do, but could still be a slowly does it approach.

Aston Martin is, as was the norm last year, influencing where the rest of the field is overall.

Weight

Happy if you’re Caddy?

Power

High Speed Power

Again there are hints at the changes in car design compared to last year. As the season develops we will get more of an idea if there has been a tendency to the middle ground.

Replenishment Rate

Don’t know how to do basic math? A full 100% energy stop is still 40 seconds.

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So, how does this relate to Daytona?

Looking at the performance from Daytona, these changes make more sense when reviewing the longer averages (best 220, or 395 lap averages).

The best correlation with Daytona performance are the P/W adjustments. As with previous years, that drives the main changes. On top of that IMSA will be honing specific characteristics through changes in weight, power, and high speed power – the many dimensions of BoP.

There are only a five-marques, so the trend is illustrative rather than absolute, but there is a pattern. At the risk of reading too much into this, Cadillac might be a small winner here.

Speculatively, maybe the variation across the cars is narrower than it could be if IMSA had more than one race data.

Daytona and Sebring have some unique characteristics which muddies the water a little. Much more tweaking to come…

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Main BoP Categories for Reference

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