McLaren is moving its one-make trophy series to IMSA, and leaving SRO behind
This is not a small teams swap. McLaren just moved an entire one-make series to a new sanctioning body
McLaren Trophy America will race under IMSA sanctioning from 2027 onward, ending a three-season run with SRO Motorsports Group. McLaren's head of motorsport Giorgio Sanna framed it as a natural fit, saying "IMSA, like McLaren, has a long and storied racing history," while IMSA president John Doonan called it an honour to be trusted with "one of its prized possessions."
What the car actually is
The series runs the Artura Trophy Evo, an upgraded version of the Artura GT4-based car that has carried the series since launch, with meaningful gains in aerodynamics, performance, and handling over the outgoing specification, the same kind of incremental engineering McLaren has been applying to its road cars through recent patent filings on hybrid acceleration technology. McLaren Trophy America is currently in its fourth season overall, its third under SRO, working through a 2026 calendar that still has rounds left at Road America in August and Indianapolis in October before the IMSA move takes effect.
Why this matters beyond one series
The bigger story sits in the driver pipeline attached to it. Selected drivers from both the American and European McLaren Trophy series get invited to McLaren Technology Centre in Woking for a summer assessment, and the strongest candidates can earn a route into the 2027 McLaren Motorsport factory driver programme. A one-make trophy series moving to a more prestigious sanctioning body raises the profile of exactly the drivers that pipeline is designed to find.
What is not confirmed yet
McLaren and IMSA have not released a 2027 calendar for the series, so anything beyond the sanctioning change itself, venues, round count, format, remains unknown for now.
AutoNext Take
Manufacturers do not move an entire one-make series to a new sanctioning body on a whim, and pairing that move with a factory driver pathway through Woking says this is about building a pipeline IMSA can showcase, not just finding a bigger paddock to race in. SRO has done nothing wrong here that either side has said publicly. McLaren simply decided IMSA's stage suits where it wants this programme to go next, and that is a more interesting signal than the switch itself.
