Wastegate Racing’s No. 33 Mercedes-AMG GT3 2020 has won the GT AM 2026 VSCA Endurance Cup after a chaotic Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, finishing sixth in class while its closest rivals finished seventh and eighth.
The title was decided by a single point. The No. 33 ended the five-race Endurance Cup on 39 points, one ahead of the defending champion No. 83 Off in the Esses Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO and two clear of the No. 747 Flight Level Racing Ford Mustang GT3. For Wastegate, it was a championship built without a race win, but with enough consistency to withstand one of the messiest finales of the season.
Wastegate Racing Wins GT AM Endurance Cup By One Point
The No. 33 started seventh and finished sixth in GT AM at Road Atlanta, completing 349 laps and finishing 72.802 seconds off the class-winning No. 515 Wolf Motorsport Simracing Mercedes. That was enough to move Wastegate Racing back to the top of the 2026 VSCA Endurance Cup standings at the moment it mattered most.
The No. 83 Off in the Esses Racing BMW, the 2025 GT AM Endurance Cup champion, finished seventh and came up one point short. It was a narrow miss with an extra sting: had the two cars finished tied on points, the No. 83 would have held the tiebreaker thanks to five top-ten finishes to the No. 33’s four.
Flight Level Racing’s No. 747 Ford finished eighth and remained third in the standings on 37 points, two behind Wastegate. The No. 64 Vulture Motorsports Porsche moved up to fourth on 34 points, while the No. 74 SRN Motorsports Mercedes slipped to fifth on 33.
Road Atlanta Finale Turns Into A Survival Race
Petit Le Mans delivered exactly the sort of pressure that can turn a championship table upside down. The 2.54-mile, 12-turn Road Atlanta circuit produced 20 GT AM lead changes, 13 full-course yellows and a remarkable 4 hours and 29 minutes under yellow flag conditions.
The race’s first full-course yellow came before the 40-minute mark of race time and the restart followed just after the one-hour mark. From there, the caution periods kept arriving: another shortly after the first hour, a long interruption before the three-hour mark, more yellows through the middle stages, and a turbulent late sequence that included back-to-back cautions with less than two hours remaining.
Wolf Motorsport Simracing’s No. 515 Mercedes won the race from 11th on the GT AM grid, leading four laps. Gamma Sim Racing’s No. 238 Ferrari finished second after starting tenth and leading a class-high 72 laps, while SWF Motorsports completed the podium from 14th on the grid with the No. 94 Porsche. The No. 3 Tri-State Racing BMW was fourth after starting second and leading 21 laps, with the No. 90 Fischer Motorsport Porsche fifth.
Wastegate’s race was not clean in the literal sense. The No. 33 had Race Control moments, incident-point pressure and a late drive-through for too many incident points, but it stayed on the lead lap of the immediate title fight and finished ahead of both the No. 83 and No. 747.
Final-Hour Incidents Shape The Championship
The championship turned as much on trouble avoided as positions gained. The No. 83’s race took a major blow just after the three-hour mark when Patrick Boilard was involved in an incident in Turn 4. Race Control issued a 95-second post-race penalty to the Off in the Esses Racing BMW.
The team appealed, arguing that its damaged car had become difficult to control after contact with the barrier and that following traffic had responsibility to slow appropriately for the local yellow. The appeal stewards upheld the original decision, leaving the penalty in place.
Flight Level Racing also had a costly Race Control outcome. The No. 747 Ford received a 35-second post-race penalty for an incident involving the No. 74 SRN Motorsports Mercedes in Turn 5, with Race Control noting that the submitted report used an incorrect incident timestamp. That decision was also part of a difficult finale for the Ford, which finished eighth and two points off the title.
Wastegate still had its own scare. Late in the race, the No. 33 dropped from fourth to tenth during a full-course-yellow sequence after car contact, then recovered position through the pit cycle. Inside the final minutes, Race Control issued a warning to the No. 97 Paul Botting Motorsport Acura after contact with the No. 33, and moments later the Wastegate Mercedes served a drive-through for too many incident points.
Tamer Elbaga described the closing stages as “a roller coaster,” saying the team had been “gutted” when an issue dropped the car from third to 11th earlier in the race. “At that point, the last stint became almost like back-marker driving,” he said. “I had a single incident point to play with to avoid a drive-through. I did absolutely everything I could to stay untouched.”
That did not quite happen. “We were tapped by a prototype, and when they spun, we picked up the penalty with three minutes to go,” Elbaga said. “Then I was back in that low moment, thinking that probably lost us the championship. Then we waited for the official results. Holy cow. But the job is done.”
Daytona Podium Sets The Championship Base
Wastegate’s title run began with its best result of the Endurance Cup season. At the Maconi Setup Shop 24 Hours of Daytona, the No. 33 started 13th in GT AM and finished second, 56.720 seconds behind the class winner. It led 129 laps, posted the fourth-best fastest-lap ranking in class, collected 15 incident points and left the opener leading the standings on 14 points.
Luca Dellaringa, Tamer Elbaga, Neill Forbes, Will Robertson and Reha Soganci shared the car at Daytona, giving Wastegate its only podium of the five-race Endurance Cup campaign. The No. 74 and No. 75 SRN Motorsports entries were immediately close behind in the standings, each one point back after the opener.
The No. 33 did not win Daytona, but it left with exactly the kind of foundation that would define its season: track position, laps led and a strong points score without overreaching.
Sebring And Watkins Glen Keep Wastegate In Front
At the Monster Energy 12 Hours of Sebring, the No. 33 started fourth and finished eighth in GT AM, two laps down. Forbes, Robertson and Soganci led 39 laps, ranked seventh on fastest lap, recorded 18 incident points and kept the Endurance Cup lead with 24 points.
That result was not spectacular, but it protected the early advantage. The No. 75 SRN Motorsports entry sat four points behind after Sebring, with the No. 74 SRN Motorsports Mercedes five back.
The Abruzzi Six Hours of the Glen at Watkins Glen tightened the fight. Elbaga, Forbes and Soganci started sixth, finished fifth, led eight laps, ranked fourth on fastest lap and recorded nine incident points. Wastegate left Watkins Glen on 28 points, level with the No. 83 Off in the Esses Racing BMW, while the No. 747 Flight Level Racing Ford sat four points behind.
It was the first clear sign that the defending champion No. 83 had become the central threat. Wastegate still held the lead after Watkins Glen, but the cushion had disappeared.
Road America Puts The Title Under Pressure
The Advanced Sim Racing Endurance Grand Prix at Road America was the low point of the No. 33’s Endurance Cup season. Forbes and Soganci started sixth and finished 11th, one lap down, with no laps led. The car ranked 12th on fastest lap and recorded 10 incident points.
That 11th-place finish was Wastegate’s worst result of the campaign. It dropped the No. 33 to second in the Endurance Cup standings, level on 32 points with the No. 83 but behind it in the ranking. The No. 747 Ford was only one point back, turning the Road Atlanta finale into a three-car fight.
For a team that had held the championship lead after the first three rounds, Road America forced a reset. The title was still within reach, but the margin for error had all but vanished.
Consistency Beats The Win Column
The numbers tell the story of Wastegate’s GT AM Endurance Cup campaign. The No. 33 contested all five championship races, scored no class wins, one podium, two top-five finishes and four top-ten finishes. Its best finish was second and its worst was 11th.
Across the five races, the Wastegate Mercedes had an average starting position of 7.2 and an average finishing position of 6.4. It recorded no DNFs and no disqualifications, led 176 laps and held the championship lead after four of the five rounds. Its final total was 39 points.
Elbaga said the lack of a race win mattered little once the trophies were in hand. “When you are holding three trophies at the end of the season, you couldn’t care less about individual races,” he said. “This is what it is all about: consistent, safe, strong pace. It is always hard to get a win, and while we may not have the absolute fastest car every weekend, we are always there.”
Team owner and manager Kyle Birnie echoed that view. “A championship is not won in a single race, but over the course of the season,” he said. “Race wins are great, and not getting them can be frustrating when you are close. But consistency is what matters, and that is what we strive for.”
Birnie pointed to Will Robertson’s description of endurance racing as “more chess than battle,” adding: “It is very much about picking your moments. That is how we treat each and every race, like a game of chess where we are playing the long game.”
Six Drivers Contribute To Wastegate’s Endurance Cup
The No. 33’s GT AM Endurance Cup title was shared across a six-driver group. Neill Forbes raced in all five championship rounds, Reha Soganci in four, Tamer Elbaga in three, Will Robertson in two, and Luca Dellaringa and Austin Edwards in one each.
For Petit Le Mans, Wastegate entrusted the finale to Austin Edwards, Elbaga and Forbes. They did not lead a lap at Road Atlanta and ranked 12th on fastest lap, but they brought the car home with 12 incident points and, crucially, ahead of the No. 83 and No. 747 in the final championship order.
“This is affirmation that driving clean and consistent works,” Elbaga said. “Our drivers are always in the hunt for clean driver recognition. It is so satisfying to finally be on the top step. All drivers had a hand in making this happen, and I could not be more proud of the job they did.”
Mercedes Earns Its First Endurance Cup Championship
The result gives Mercedes its first Endurance Cup championship in series history. It also completes a remarkable GT AM sweep for Wastegate Racing’s No. 33 program, following its GT AM Sprint Cup title last year and adding the Sprint Cup, Endurance Cup and SportsCar Championship crowns this season.
There was personal weight behind the celebration as well. The No. 33 carries memory decals for Tom Hennes and Thomas Baker, both of whom passed away in 2025, making the championship more than a points-table achievement for the team.
Birnie’s own week added another layer. After being involved in a car accident in California on the Wednesday before the race, he was too sore to compete in his own GTP entry, but remained in the paddock throughout the event to support Wastegate’s two cars and celebrate with the team in victory circle.
“This encapsulates what we strive for at Wastegate Racing,” Birnie said. “Keep the nose clean, let the race come to us, and make sure we are there at the end of each race. If we do that enough, we end up where we did. I could not be more proud of all the drivers of the No. 33 and the No. 32.”
For the No. 33 Wastegate Racing Mercedes, this 2026 VSCA Endurance Cup title was not won with one decisive pass or one dominant afternoon. It was won through five finishes, 176 laps led, no retirements, and a final night at Road Atlanta where sixth place was enough to turn consistency into history.
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