The GT PRO field arrived at the Long Beach Street Circuit with fresh Daytona scars and plenty of paddock chatter about full-course yellows. After a record-breaking 20 FCYs in January, competitors feared the concrete canyons of the season’s only street race would be more of the same. Instead, Round 2 of the 2026 VSCA SportsCar Championship delivered something very different: one FCY, 21 minutes of neutralization, and a GT PRO race that stayed tense because the walls never stopped asking questions.
Peter Spijkman put the #71 Sim City Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) on pole with a 1:18.070, and when the GT PRO class got the green flag, the polesitter controlled the early rhythm. But Long Beach has a habit of turning certainty into maybes, and the GT PRO story quickly became about damage limitation, timing, and who could keep their nose clean while the strategy split formed behind them.
Early drama and a messy opening chapter
Before the racing even properly settled, the #84 Unitronic Fischer Motorsport Porsche was already dealing with a Start from Pit Lane penalty, issued for a driver lineup change after the entry deadline. Stephen Nobes joined in the mix, immediately starting what would become one of the standout recovery drives of the day.
Long Beach did what Long Beach does in the opening laps. The #65 Vulture Motorsports Porsche suffered a heavy setback early on, losing ten positions in a contact incident and tumbling from P5 to P15 before heading to pit lane. Not long after, the #157 iRacing Today Motorsports Aston Martin also took a hit in track position due to contact, dropping seven spots. The street circuit’s “zero room for error” reputation was already cashing checks.
There was further controversy from Turn 1 on Lap 1, where #9 Ares Racing was later penalized post-race for a dive-bomb style move that spun the #24 Grow Racing Team Porsche. The appeal was denied after review, a reminder that chaotic starts demand patience rather than heroics on a narrow track lined with concrete.
The only FCY, and the pit lane reshuffle
The race’s lone Full-Course Yellow arrived 33 minutes in after an incident that later carried a major post-race penalty for #12 BMW M Team Delta Racing. With organizers having adjusted FCY procedures after Daytona and teams newly empowered to self-serve certain non-procedural penalties, Long Beach became an immediate test of who had fully internalized the updated regulations.
The neutralization triggered a decisive round of GT PRO pit stops and position changes. The #77 Virtual Power Sim Racing Porsche pitted under FCY, as did the #44 MATCO Fischer Motorsport Porsche, the #157 iRacing Today Motorsports Aston Martin, the #84 Unitronic Fischer Motorsport Porsche, and several others. The shuffle was frantic and after cars were exiting pits and continued to pace under yellow flag conditions, things got even worse when a crash while pacing, involving a GT AM and GTP class car between turn four and five, created chaos.
When the green returned the 54-minute mark, the race had only one FCY in the books, but the GT PRO order had been thoroughly re-written. From there, the lead changed hands repeatedly, with eight lead changes in the class across the event as teams tried to land on the right side of the strategy coin flip.
A GT PRO race decided by rhythm, timing, and survival
The post-restart phase became a moving puzzle. Pit cycles and traffic management created rapid swings in class position: the #57 Double Stint Racing BMW climbed into the fight, the #84 continued carving forward, and the front of GT PRO kept rotating as each contender tried to hit their stops without getting swallowed by timing.
Lead changes came in waves. The #13 VSR Competición took a turn at the front, the #44 briefly controlled the class, and then the lead continued to rotate as the race entered its final hour. At various points, Long Beach demanded payment for small errors: spins, contacts, and failed or invalid self-serving penalties all shaped the final classification. The #18 Gowin Racing Ferrari’s attempt to serve a 60-second Stop and Hold was later ruled invalid because it was completed in the pit stall rather than the designated penalty box, triggering a mandatory post-race time penalty.
Through all of it, the #71 Sim City Racing Porsche remained a key reference point. The polesitting Porsche led the most GT PRO laps with 41, but Long Beach ultimately handed it a hard-luck result: P11 at the finish after becoming innocent victims of incidents, ending up outside the top ten despite controlling large portions of the race.
Top ten: #183 cashes in, #77 and #44 complete the podium
The GT PRO win went to the #183 Blocco Motore Simsport Aston Martin, with Tyler Redden and Ian Laurence Brown bringing it home after a race that rewarded composure as much as speed. The margin to second was 11.275 seconds, a gap built through clean execution on a circuit where confidence can disappear in a single brush of the wall. For the #183 Aston Martin this was a strong follow-up result after a 6th-place result in the season opener last month.
Second place delivered a major milestone for #77 Virtual Power Sim Racing in the Porsche 911 GT3 R (992). Tomás Silva and Luis Cunha bounced back from their Daytona heartbreak to claim their first VSCA podium, showing that persistence matters when the season is still young and the calendar has very different tracks ahead.
Third went to the #44 Fischer Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) with Christian Malcharek and Manuel Mayer. Their day was defined by restraint at the walls and smart positioning through the strategy split, and benefiting from post-race decisions, including a drive time violation penalty that dropped the #13 VSR Competición entry to last place in class.
Fourth place belonged to the #88 Ric Team Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO of José Barbosa and Bernardo Silva, a solid Long Beach result built on keeping the car intact through the narrow sections. Fifth was the #68 TwoLemmaTree Racing McLaren 720S GT3 EVO of Niklas Solle and Travis Linscome-Hatfield, a key points haul after arriving at Long Beach as the championship leader.
Sixth saw Vulture Motorsports place their new #66 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) entry in the mix, with Thomas Fisher and Erol Ureksoy bringing it home cleanly. Seventh went to the #112 Rusty Spatulas Racing McLaren 720S GT3 EVO of Jan Zilliacus and Henri Miettinen after a race of swings, including time spent at the sharp end during the late lead-change carousel.
Eighth was one of the drive stories of the GT PRO race: the #84 Unitronic Fischer Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) surged from P16 on the grid to P8 at the finish, gaining eight positions despite the Start from Pit Lane penalty. Stephen Nobes and Marco Silva stayed focused despite a late-race incident involving the #151 World Of SimRacing Corvette in turn six.
Ninth went to the #157 iRacing Today Motorsports Aston Martin Vantage GT3 EVO of Timothy Johnston and Chad Dalton. It was not a quiet afternoon for the #157, with multiple Race Control notes in the log and a post-race time penalty for an unserved drive-through penalty, but the team still emerged inside the top ten. Rounding out the top ten was the #24 Grow Racing Team Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) with Nuno Vinagre and Nuno Magalhaes, recovering from early-race trouble to still claim a valuable Long Beach finish.
Post-Race Reactions
Tyler Redden, #183 Blocco Motore Simsport Aston Martin: "It feels amazing. We put in a ton of practice, and it is so rewarding here because it is incredibly easy to make one small mistake and find the wall."
"I actually had some performance issues during the race. My game crashed before I got in the car and it reset my graphics, so I drove my stint at about 50 frames per second. That was not easy at all."
"Honestly, I do not have some magic secret for this track. My teammate started the race and had an incredible stint. Erik handled the strategy, and I was basically the caveman who just drove the car."
"I only have good things to say about my team. They do the research and build the plan, and I just try to execute it."
"I am actually the only one on the team who actively dislikes the Aston Martin. It has some really weird handling traits that I struggle with."
"It was not my decision to switch manufacturers. I was basically told, ‘This is what we are running this season,’ and I went with it."
"It feels great to finally lead a VSCA championship. I am confident our team has what it takes to win anywhere, sprint races and endurance races."
"There will be tracks where our car is not the fastest, and honestly that makes it even more fun when you still manage to win. I trust my teammates completely, and I am very confident in my pace."
Tomás Silva, #77 Virtual Power Sim Racing Porsche: "It feels incredible. This championship is so competitive, and every track is different, so you never really know where you will stack up until it is happening."
"We got some clean air near the end and that let us really push. Once we could settle into a rhythm, the pace was there."
"Daytona was rough. We had a technical issue with one of our drivers, it turned into about 50 minutes of repairs, and then we made the call to retire the car."
"Looking back, that was probably a rookie mistake in our first VSCA race. Coming into Long Beach, we told ourselves that no matter what happens, we finish the race, stay patient, and execute cleanly."
"We will keep pushing, for sure. The season is long and different tracks suit different drivers, so we are focused on maximizing every weekend and staying consistent."
"Strong performances can flip your situation in this championship. Whatever happens that is out of our control, it happens. Our job is to stay focused and keep delivering."
Manuel Mayer, #44 Fischer Motorsport Porsche: "I am a bit surprised, honestly. Before we crossed the line we were running fourth, so I need to check what happened with the #13 later. I heard it might be related to maximum drive time, but either way, we are on the podium now, and that feels great."
"Our main focus was to be as safe and predictable as possible. You cannot drive this place at 100 percent all race, the walls are too close, so we tried to stay calm at like 98 percent."
"Strategy-wise it was really interesting. It felt like there were two different strategies in the field, and both could have worked out or gone the wrong way."
"We stopped during the first FCY and did the opposite of what the top five did. Unfortunately the driver swap was not possible at that moment because of the minimum drive time, but in the end it still worked out."
"Overall, both strategies worked without any huge surprises. We had a solid pace and avoided mistakes, and that was the key today."
"It is a great start to the season. Daytona was a bit unlucky for us with the late incident and the post-race penalty, and that hurt."
"But it is what it is. We always look forward. If you focus on staying out of trouble instead of trying to be the fastest every lap, the results usually come to you. That is the goal for the rest of the season, and we will see what it brings."
Christian Malcharek, #44 Fischer Motorsport Porsche: "A podium at Long Beach is always special. I do not think we really came in expecting a podium, and maybe that helped us. We just focused on doing our job."
"I did qualifying and I was not happy with the starting spot. I made a mistake on what should have been my quickest lap, and then on the last lap I tried to gain time without risking another big error."
"Honestly, we did not expect miracles, but we wanted to finish as high as possible. The plan was simple: stay out of trouble and be as clean as we could."
"We were lucky to avoid the really dangerous moments. The car and setup felt great, and we enjoyed the driving, but we always respected the walls."
"Sometimes it is better to give up a tenth or two than to have a broken car and lose minutes in repairs. That mindset brought us a lot today."
"We hope we can earn more podiums, but consistency is the key. Get as many points as possible every race, stay away from trouble, and keep it clean."
"That is what we will try to do for the rest of the season. At the end we will see what it brings. Fingers crossed, and we are looking forward to every round."
Championship Picture
With Long Beach in the books, the #183 Blocco Motore Simsport Aston Martin moves into the GT PRO points lead of the SportsCar Championship standings on 925 points. The #68 TwoLemmaTree Racing McLaren 720S GT3 EVO drops to second, 60 points back, while the #44 Fischer Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) climbs to third, 105 points off the lead.
In the Sprint Cup standings, the #183 opens the season in first place, on 525 points. The #44 sits second, 65 points behind, and the #77 Virtual Power Sim Racing Porsche holds third, 75 points back after its breakthrough Long Beach podium.
Next Up
The SportsCar Championship heads to Sebring next for the Monster Energy 12 Hours of Sebring on February 28, 2026, with the race scheduled to start at 14:00 GMT. It will be Round 3 of 11 in the 2026 VSCA SportsCar Championship at Sebring International Raceway in Sebring, Florida, and the multi-class picture will expand again with LMP2 returning to action.