Riley Motorsports, in partnership with Ford Racing, announced Wednesday that they will switch to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s GTD class in 2026. They will field a new Ford Mustang GT3 full-time.
The car will also carry a throwback scheme. As shown above when the team took delivery of their Mustang at Michigan’s Henry Ford Museum, the car will run colors reminiscent of the Motorcraft Ford Mustang and Mercury Capris that Roush-Protofab Racing ran in IMSA competition in the mid-1980s.
The Ford Mustang GT3 has come into its own in IMSA in 2025. After a winless 2024, Ford Multimatic Motorsports earned their first win with the car in the Rolex 24 at Daytona. Additional victories at Detroit and Indianapolis have followed.
“It feels like ‘coming home’ in a way, having grown up in Detroit,” said Bill Riley, owner of Riley Motorsports. “To receive this Ford Mustang GT3 at The
Henry Ford [Museum] has been very nice, as well as seeing all the capabilities Ford Racing has to offer its customers. Now it’s up to us to execute. This is a very exciting time for Riley Motorsports. The ‘All American’ aspect really delivers with that big V8 up front. It is so striking how good of a job Ford Racing and Multimatic Motorsports did on the Mustang GT3.”
The team has campaigned prototypes in recent years in WeatherTech competition. Most recently, the team has raced an ORECA 07-Gibson in the LMP2 class in collaboration with Robinson Racing. However, Robinson Racing is leaving IMSA at the end of the year in order to focus on off-road racing. Gar Robinson announced in August that he would not partake in a full-time schedule in 2026. However, it is possible that he might make a one-off appearance.
In 51 career WeatherTech starts, Robinson has 12 class victories and 25 podium finishes. All 12 of the victories and his two championships (2021 and 2023) came while the team was running in the LMP3 class.
While Riley Motorsports has fielded LMP2 and LMP3 cars in IMSA in recent years, they do have recent GT3 experience. The organization has also had a parallel program in SRO America running the CrowdStrike Racing Mercedes driven by George Kurtz in both GT World Challenge America powered by AWS and GT America powered by AWS in recent years.
Riley Motorsports did not announce any drivers in their announcement. They will be revealed at a later date. The team’s number for 2026 will be revealed Thursday as part of IMSA’s annual State of the Sport address at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta, where the full-season team roster will be announced.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.