Following a chaotic event at Road America that featured nine full-course yellow flags and several penalties, IMSA officials held a media roundtable leading into the GT-only race weekend at Virginia International Raceway to address mounting driver aggression and outline a tougher stance from race control. This comes after Porsche Penske Motorsport's driver Kévin Estre being placed on a two-race probation after a late-race crash that eliminated two front-running GTP cars.
IMSA senior vice president of competition Simon Hodgson opened the discussion by expressing disappointment over recent driving standards at both Watkins Glen and Road America, emphasizing that while the rulebook remains sound, driver behavior has crossed a line.
“It was disappointing to see the number of potentially avoidable incidents we had, both single-car incidents and multi-car incidents,” Hodgson said. “What we want to state here is the regulations aren’t broken. What we're seeing is some behavior starting to escalate. IMSA understands its responsibility here, stating clearly to the competitors where that line is.”
A look back at the final restart from @roadamerica. pic.twitter.com/IDncRtG4nG
— IMSA (@IMSA) August 2, 2026
Hodgson reaffirmed that safety and fair competition remain IMSA's priorities across all its sanctioned championships.
“IMSA’s messaging has always been and will be moving forward, ‘You need to race responsibly, and you need to provide the competitor you're racing with racing room,’” Hodgson noted, adding that nine cautions at Road America “certainly isn't what any of us wanted... [and] certainly IMSA’s fans didn't want that.”
In response to questions regarding changes to officiating procedures, IMSA Race Director Beaux Barfield signaled a firm shift in Race Control's approach. Barfield said his usual preference for “absolute hard, clear evidence” may give way to a more assertive approach when determining responsibility.
“I'm pretty much a ‘smoking gun’ type of person. You have to have absolute hard, clear evidence to make any kind of call,” Barfield said. “And this put us in a position potentially to use a little bit more conjecture and connect some dots to arrive at penalties to get the kind of accountability that we need on-track.”
Barfield acknowledged that late-season pressure often leads to desperate moves, but said those pressures would not prevent IMSA from intervening when driving standards fall short.
“We've now seen two seasons in a row... that this escalation occurs at the end of the season,” Barfield said. “There's championships on the line, there's pressure, there's people signing contracts and doing deals. That doesn't factor into what we do and that doesn't justify that as being okay, acceptable behavior. If that is the norm at the end of the season, we still need to step in and intervene and make sure that we're enforcing what we see as on-track compliance.”
