MONTEREY, California – Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing team Winward Racing – the reigning IMSA GT Daytona (GTD) class champions and defending WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca (WRLS) race winners – lead both the 2025 GTD driver and team championship point standings heading into this weekend’s Monterey SportsCar Championship IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race. Reigning GTD champions Russell Ward and Philip Ellis look for their second-consecutive IMSA WeatherTech race win at WRLS this Sunday in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3. One of two Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing entries in Sunday’s featured two-hour and 40-minute race, Winward will be joined in the fourth WeatherTech Championship GTD round of the 10-race season by the No. 32 Korthoff Competition Motors Mercedes-AMG GT3 co-driven by Seth Lucas and Kenton Koch.
The Monterey SportsCar Championship IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race is scheduled to start at 12:10 p.m. PDT this Sunday, May 11, and airs live on the flagship NBC network at 3 p.m. EDT, in addition to flag-to-flag coverage on NBC’s Peacock online streaming network. International viewers can watch live on IMSA.TV.
Last year at WRLS, Ward and Ellis won their third race of the season to extend a championship lead they carried straight to the 2024 WeatherTech GTD driver and team titles. The championship season included a series-leading fourth win in the race following Laguna Seca at the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen at Watkins Glen International.
The No. 57 Winward team and drivers return to WRLS in a similarly strong position this year with one victory already in the books and early-season point leads in both the GTD driver and team standings with no finish lower than fourth in the year’s opening trio of races.
The Winward team won their second-straight 12 Hours of Sebring race in March and bookended the victory with fourth-place GTD finishes in January’s season-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona and the most recent series race last month at the 50th Grand Prix of Long Beach.
The No. 57 team and drivers went into the Long Beach 100-minute sprint race with a 41-point lead in the GTD driver and team championship standings but more than doubled the gap after the race to 91 points, 994 – 903, over the nearest challengers.
Winward’s fourth place at Long Beach was the team’s career best finish on the tight and tricky street circuit.
Korthoff Competition in turn secured its best finish of 2025 with sixth place by Lucas and Koch in the Long Beach debut for both drivers.
While native Californian Koch has attended the Grand Prix of Long Beach as a fan or paddock observer for decades, the 18-year-old Lucas remarkably co-drove with his teammate to the team’s season-best result in his first ever visit to a street course in any capacity.
Lucas brings the momentum of the solid Long Beach result to Monterey this weekend where he makes another debut and first-time visit to WRLS. The two California races are on the only two tracks new to Lucas this year as he has previous experience before 2025 at Daytona, Sebring and the remaining six circuits on the schedule following this weekend’s race.
With then team drivers Mikael Grenier and Mike Skeen, the No. 32 Korthoff team finished WRLS career-best fourth last year.
Saturday’s featured Laguna Seca 120 for the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge series includes the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4 co-driven by Russell Ward’s father, Bryce Ward, and their teammate Daniel Morad in the top-tier Grand Sport (GS) class.
Winward has been strong in GT4 competition in the GS division at WRLS in the past, winning in 2019 and racking up four podiums in the last four years. Similar results would bring a welcome boost to this year’s championship bid.
After a sixth-place finish at the Daytona opener, an issue in the following race at Sebring relegated the No. 57 to a result one lap behind the leaders, but the most recent podium showings at WRLS have come from Bryce Ward and Morad. The duo recorded successive third places in 2023 and 2024 in the No. 57 Mercedes-AMG GT4.
The two-hour Laguna Seca 120 Michelin Pilot Challenge race is scheduled to start at 12:45 p.m. this Saturday, May 10, and can be seen live on Peacock.
Russell Ward, Driver – No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: “For us, it is a really positive outlook for the rest of the season. We spent the last two weeks just making every aspect of the car perfect and loaded up last Saturday for the trip back to California. We are the defending champions at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, so we know how to win on this track. The Mercedes-AMG GT3 is generally good at Laguna Seca. I have been on pole there once, and we always seem to have good qualifying results, so we tend to have the best of both worlds with good qualifying speed and good race pace. I am really looking forward to the weekend and seeing how it turns out. Our primary purpose and main focus for the weekend is to maintain the lead and build on it if we can, but we never count out any of the competition. I am really looking forward to it, it will be great to be back in California, and everything is going to be great out there.”
Seth Lucas, Driver – No. 32 Korthoff Competition Motors Mercedes-AMG GT3: “We are super excited to get to WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca coming up this weekend. This will be my first trip there ever, even as a spectator or anything like that, but everybody always talks about this track. I have done a lot of extra simulator time because this is a new track for me, way more hours than all of the other tracks still left on this year’s schedule that I have been to. Having Kenton as a teammate, with all of his experience at Laguna, is also a big help. He is super methodical on everything and points out the details of every corner. That is what helped me get through Long Beach, where we both made our debuts, but Kenton knew exactly what we should do. He has more time at Laguna Seca than any other track. The Mercedes-AMG GT3 has been the perfect car for me to jump back into GT3 after focusing on prototypes the last season or two. It’s honestly my favorite GT3 car I have ever driven. It’s super compliant and does what you want it to do, and all of the experienced engineers on our team know exactly what the car needs.”
