Sport Cars, On and Off-Road Racing, and Rallycross The 2017 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship was the 56th season of IMSA sanctioned sports car racing. The series was announced as the successor to the American Le Mans Series and its WeatherTech SportsCar Championship name in November 2014. Its name was derived from its title sponsor. It features many of the cars and drivers from the ALMS, including Corvette Racing, Acura Team Penske, Cadillac Racing, Porsche GT Team, and BMW Team RLL. The season began at Daytona International Speedway on January 24 and concluded at Road Atlanta on October 26. WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca was dropped as a venue and replaced by a new raceway, Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. In the GT Daytona category, a new class, GT Daytona DPi, features two-seat prototype cars designed by Mazda Motorsports in close cooperation with IMSA. IMSA introduced a new category, GT Le Mans (GTLM), intended for the top-tier of professional teams in order to help close the gap between sports car and prototype racing. BMW Team RLL, Ford Chip Ganassi Racing, and Corvette Racing, the top 3 finishers in the 2016 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, were selected by IMSA to compete in the GTLM class. For the first time since 2006, the GT class also included a category for a new car, the Ferrari 488 GT3. Although the Ferrari is an open-top two-seater, it is allowed to compete with other GT3 cars, such as the Porsche 911 GT3, due to its single seat and FIA GT3 homologation. The BMW Z4 was replaced by the Z4 GTLM. WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca remained as one of the stops for the series. A new category, GTD, was created for the grand tourer-style cars in the top three GTLM categories. GTD is a production-based class for GTLMs in which the factory teams have an option of allowing amateur drivers to race the cars, which could be modified from the factory settings for the customer team. In order to have a chance to win the GT class, teams in GTLM/GTD must be fully prepared and in compliance with GTLM race setup. IMSA also introduced a new class in the LMP2 category: the LMP2 Prototype class. Porsche GT Team, K-PAX Racing, Alegra Motorsports, Performance Tech Motorsports, BAR1 Motorsports, and Oreca FLM09. 2017 WeatherTech Championship Schedule Sources Season results Bold indicates overall winner of that race. Drivers Championships Points are awarded to the highest-placed registered drivers on a 3-3-2-1 basis for the first five positions in each division in qualifying for each race. Only the best nine scores from the ten races counts towards the championship. The season champion is the driver with the highest points total over the full season. GT Daytona Drivers Championship GT Le Mans Drivers Championship GTD Drivers Championship Prototype Drivers Championship LMP2 Drivers Championship Michelin Endurance Cup GT classes only ran at Daytona, Watkins Glen, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. 2017 WeatherTech Sprint Cup The 2017 WeatherTech Sprint Cup was contested with the Rolex Sports Car Series. As part of their new partnership, both series featured the Ferrari 488 in various capacities, including both cars in the GT Daytona class and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar championship. Season Results References External links Category:WeatherTech SportsCar Championship seasons WeatherTech SportsCar Championship