Long Beach only shows you the exit if you respect the walls first. In the GT AM class at the Sports Car Grand Prix of Long Beach, SRN Motorsports did exactly that, turning pole position into victory as the 1.90-mile street circuit put strategy, patience, and timing under a microscope.
Round 2 of 11 in the 2026 VSCA SportsCar Championship and Round 1 of 5 in the 2026 Sprint Cup brought the season’s first and only street race to the 11-turn Long Beach Street Circuit on Saturday. With Detroit Belle Isle no longer on the calendar and LMP2 sitting this one out until Sebring, the GT AM return to Long Beach for the first time since 2024 had the feel of a special occasion.
Pole to flag, with one big interruption
The #74 SRN Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3 2020 started the GT AM race from pole after Tim McLeish set a 1:18.698 in qualifying, and that track position mattered. Long Beach is notoriously stingy when it comes to clean passes, and the early laps proved it as cars fought for inches rather than opportunities.
Race Control’s story of the opening minutes was busy even before the race settled. The class start saw the #74 SRN Motorsports take the lead, but a major turn 1 shuffle triggered post-race rulings, including a 60-second time penalty for the #64 Vulture Motorsports Porsche for a race start violation and a separate 60-second time penalty for the #9 Ares Racing Lamborghini following contact in the opening laps. As always in VSCA, Race Directors manage the race live, while Race Stewards reviewed incidents after the event and applied penalties post-race, where applicable.
The race’s single Full-Course Yellow arrived 33 minutes in and lasted a total of 21 minutes, with the green flag returning at the 54-minute mark. That one neutralization became the pivot point for fuel windows and track position, especially in GT AM where clean air can be worth more than raw pace around concrete.
Lead changes, pit timing, and the street-circuit squeeze
The GT AM class saw 9 lead changes, and the lead swapped hands repeatedly as different pit timing played out around the caution. The #64 Vulture Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) led the most laps with 60, but despite that lap-led total, ultimately finished P13.
Behind the leaders, the class order never truly relaxed. The #75 SRN Motorsports Mercedes kept itself in the conversation through the caution cycle and later lane-by-lane decisions into Turn 1 and the tight final sector. The #33 Wastegate Racing Mercedes, meanwhile, had to keep its elbows in and its mirrors full after being shuffled in the midfield at various points, then climbing back into a second straight runner-up finish.
One of the day’s standout climbs came from the #90 Fischer Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R (992). From P15 on the grid, the #90 gained 11 positions to finish P4, turning a street-circuit survival test into a statement result and landing just off the podium in one of the most chaotic GT AM races in recent memory.
The top ten: who finished where
When the dust settled in GT AM, the win went to the #74 SRN Motorsports Mercedes, driven by Tim McLeish and Laurence Dobrot - their second in a row after coming up winners in the Maconi Setup Shop 24 Hours of Daytona last month. They were followed home by the #33 Wastegate Racing Mercedes of Will Robertson and Tamer Elbaga in second in a mirror of last month's Daytona results, with the #75 SRN Motorsports Mercedes of Daniel Graulty and Richard Bell completing the podium in third.
Fourth was the charging #90 Fischer Motorsport Porsche of Ryan Steinhoff and Kevin Smith. Fifth went to the #4 Superstar Racing Team McLaren of John Santoro and Michael James, ahead of the #283 Blocco Motore Simsport Aston Martin of Stevey Amanatidis and Ben Winter in sixth.
Seventh belonged to the #17 Superstar Racing Team McLaren of Thomas Spencer and Ryan Housden. Eighth was the #515 Wolf Motorsport Simracing Mercedes of Christopher Limprecht and Claudio Di Santo. Ninth went to the #3 Tri-State Racing BMW of Chris Cadiz and Sam Vaughan, with the #94 SWF Motorsports Porsche of Jason Brothers and Marcus Taylor rounding out the top ten in tenth.
A finish worth measuring with a stopwatch
At the front, SRN’s #74 took the GT AM win by 10.903 seconds, recorded as the 7th-closest GT AM class finish in VSCA history. It was a margin built on staying out of trouble on a circuit that punishes impatience instantly, and on getting through the caution phase without losing the thread of the race.
The race winner completed 113 laps, a figure that underlined just how far the GT AM front-runners pushed the pace despite the 21 minutes under yellow. It also mattered for classification consequences elsewhere: the #9 Ares Racing Lamborghini completed 55 laps, which was 48.6% of the winner’s distance, and therefore did not meet the 77% minimum required to earn championship points for this race.
Points picture: wins are nice, but so are bonus points
Two races into the season, the championship story has an extra layer. In VSCA, the winner does not automatically score the most championship points because clean racing bonus points can swing the totals: the entry with the lowest iRacing incident points in the race earns the highest clean racing bonus, and that bonus system is worth 50% of the finishing-position points system.
That mechanism is why the #33 Wastegate Racing Mercedes leaves Long Beach still leading the GT AM SportsCar Championship standings with 990 points, despite the #74 SRN Motorsports Mercedes winning again. SRN’s #74 holds second in the series standings, 45 points back, while the #3 Tri-State Racing BMW sits third, 215 points behind the lead.
The Sprint Cup picture mirrors that form after the first Sprint Cup round of the year: the #33 leads with 495 points, the #74 is second, 30 points behind, and the #75 SRN Motorsports Mercedes holds third, 90 points back.
Post-Race Reactions
Tamer Elbaga, #33 Wastegate Racing Mercedes: "Honestly, it feels incredible to get another result. It is surprising given what happened in the race, but we will absolutely take it."
"This one was really satisfying. We did not think we would be competitive on pace, so starting further back was no surprise. Then we got shunted and shuffled to the back with around 1 hour 20 minutes remaining, and that was going to be a big hill to climb. But we survived with no damage, kept our heads down, and basically drove an error-free race. Keep it clean, get a little luck, and suddenly you are back on the podium."
"We make it a priority every single time we hit the track to drive a clean race. We prioritize clean driving over pace. So far it has served us well. Nobody knows what the future holds, and we have had our share of bad luck in previous seasons. Here is hoping some good luck comes our way for the rest of this season."
Laurence Dobrot, #74 SRN Motorsports Mercedes: "It feels great. We put in a ton of laps in practice, and once again, practice paid off. We need to thank our teammates in the #75 car and our sponsors, DailySportscar.com and Navigatorboat.com."
"Actually, for us it was fairly straightforward. Starting on pole put us in a solid position because it is very difficult to pass at Long Beach. The one and only caution worked in our favor because we could stick to our strategy while other teams chose to pit early. We were able to cross the finish line with one lap of fuel remaining without needing an extra pit stop."
"We are looking forward to our battle with Wastegate. They are a great team and incredibly talented, and their clean driving has really paid off for them. We are constantly working to improve our driving. The season is early and a lot can happen, so we just need to keep working on staying clean."
Will Robertson, #33 Wastegate Racing Mercedes: "Thank you. To come to a track that I do not particularly feel comfortable at and go home with a good result is a great feeling. I would have taken anything in the top half of the grid today, so a P2 was definitely unexpected."
"We set out with only one goal in mind: clean racing. The GT AM field is so close in pace that the real difference-maker is clean driving and being there at the end."
"I could not tell you how the rest of the season will go. We will keep doing what we have been doing, try to earn the most points for clean driving every weekend, and see where that takes us. The GT AM field is incredibly quick, so we will focus on what we can control and see where it leads."
Daniel Graulty, #75 SRN Motorsports Mercedes: "We are very excited to get this podium after the disappointment of letting a podium slip through our fingers at Daytona. Going forward, we believe we can compete for podiums regularly."
"The strategy calls were the biggest challenge. Long Beach is so hard to pass on that we had to make sure we called the pit stops right, so nobody got a free position on us through strategy."
"We are thrilled with how the #74 car has performed so far this season. We work side-by-side on car setup and preparing for races, and we would love to score more double podiums. We believe we can do that."
Next up: Monster Energy 12 Hours of Sebring
The GT AM field now turns toward Florida for the Monster Energy 12 Hours of Sebring on February 28, 2026, scheduled to start at 14:00 GMT. It will be Round 3 of 11 in the 2026 VSCA SportsCar Championship, and it also marks the return of LMP2 to the weekend’s multi-class mix at Sebring International Raceway.