![\"AUTO:](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/d0a9dcd0-ef0f-4cee-ae8b-c17912a988bb.jpeg\" "\\"AUTO:")
<\/p>\nHeaded into the stretch run of the IMSA WeatherTech Championship, Nick Tandy is in a good place.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s contesting the championship in GTD Pro on board AO Racing\u2019s \u201cRexy,\u201d the nickname for its popular 911 R GT3 with a dinosaur-themed livery. Coming off two straight podiums with co-driver Harry King, this weekend Tandy returns to GT-class-only racing at VIRginia International Raceway, where he scored three victories in the GTLM era on board Porsches.<\/p>\n
More than that, the author of the \u201cTandy Slam\u201d is happy to be out of the pressure cooker that is GTP racing and back to the GT basics after three seasons with Porsche Penske Motorsport.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was time for a change,\u201d said Tandy. \u201cI had three years in GTP. And we had great results. We had championship wins. We had Sebring and Daytona wins. We had lots of wins. But something just wasn\u2019t right for me. I needed to change to better the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tandy clinched his \u201cSlam\u201d of 24-hour race victories at last year\u2019s Rolex 24 in the Porsche 963, which followed 24-hour victories at Le Mans, the N\u00fcrburgring and Spa over a 10-year span. The 2025 run continued with a co-drive to victory at Sebring and then Long Beach. But thereafter, the wheels fell off with crashes and one costly penalty. Once Porsche elected to stop racing in the World Endurance Championship, the veteran Tandy\u2019s fate in GTP was sealed with so many drivers under factory contracts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had lots of wins. But something just wasn\u2019t right for me. I needed to change to better the rest of my life.\u201d <\/p>\n
To get to AO Racing, Tandy in effect swapped seats with rising GTP star Lauren Heinrich. Ironically, Heinrich has been the only Porsche driver to stay close in this year\u2019s GTP championship after splitting time with Porsche Penske and JDC-Miller Motorsports.<\/p>\n
For Tandy, the team and class change means he finds himself in the thick of the GTD Pro title chase. With three races remaining starting with the Michelin GT Challenge sprint race at VIR on Sunday, Tandy and King are third and within 21 points of leaders Neil Verhagen and Connor De Phillippi, drivers of the Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO. Tommy Milner and Nicky Catsburg, drivers of the No. 4 Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R hold second, 15 points behind the leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you’d have asked me in July last year, what I would like to race next year, it probably would have been a pro level, factory-backed, GT class because the racing is just so good,\u201d said Tandy, who continues as a factory driver and has returned to his more happy-go-lucky ways absent the intensity of the GTP class and its computer-centric cars. He doesn\u2019t miss a two-car operation, either, with the inevitable team orders and politics compared with the single-car team at AO.<\/p>\n
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Icon Sportswire\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI get to race against top drivers,\u201d he said \u201cI get to race with a proper professional team of absolute, ultimate experts in their field. I guess I still work with the manufacturer on developing their car. It\u2019s all the fun bits of being a factory driver. And I get to enjoy life outside of racing, as well. It was a lucky sequence of events that happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
AO racing brings not only top-flight equipment from dot.com millionaire PJ Hyett and expert race management from veteran Gunnar Jeannette, plus a young co-driver in King who is fully versed in GT3 racing. AO\u2019s fanciful liveries and car names for the green snaggle-toothed \u201cRexy\u201d and the pink \u201cRoxy\u201d Porsche make it one of the most popular teams in the IMSA paddock, especially among families and younger fans.<\/p>\n
![\"IMSA](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/0fc1496a-7d3b-4217-b077-9dcef7cb34db.jpeg\" "\\"IMSA")
<\/p>\n
Michael L. Levitt\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Because of the Porsche connection, Tandy was already familiar with the AO team back to the days of the crew members who transferred to it from CORE Autosport at the startup. \u201cThey struck me as a team that looks after their employees,\u201d said Tandy. \u201cThat keeps them happy, so everybody wants to go and work to their full ability and enjoy themselves, and work as a team together. But also, they know when stuff has to get serious, when decisions have to be made, and there is instances where decisions have to be made for the good of the result. That\u2019s exactly what happens. It shows that they can compete with anyone out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The only thing missing from this year\u2019s resume is a victory, which would add another gold tooth to \u201cRexy.\u201d But Tandy is focused on the long run. \u201cIf you ask me now, would I take a championship with three second places in the run to Atlanta, then absolutely. You know AO and Porsche, myself and Harry, and the team are there to try to not only win races, but win championships. This is the key aim at the start of the season every year.\u201d<\/p>\n
As long as Tandy is GT class racing in IMSA, it\u2019s highly unlikely he\u2019ll be able to add to his Tandy Slam record of overall 24-hour victories, although he co-drove a Porsche RSR to overall victory in the Petit Le Mans in the rain versus the DP class in 2015. (Since it was the same year as his Le Mans victory in a 919 Hybrid prototype, perhaps the Tandy Petit Slam?)<\/p>\n
![\"IMSA](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/e6a186e9-39b4-44e9-a92b-a1534b38de59.jpeg\" "\\"IMSA")
<\/p>\n
Michael L. Levitt\/\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Despite last year\u2019s turmoil on the heels of his early season co-drives to victory, Tandy says his unofficial Slam title is far from a curse. \u201cIt can\u2019t be anything but a blessing,\u201d he said, laughing. \u201cYou go racing every weekend to try to win. Sometimes you win a major, let\u2019s say, and you know if you win enough of these things, eventually they all add up, and somebody coins a phrase. I\u2019m sure someone will do it again. But to be the first person in history is something special. It happened over 12 months ago and we\u2019re still talking about it, so it\u2019s a very good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
On to the championship chase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Headed into the stretch run of the IMSA WeatherTech Championship, Nick Tandy is in a good place. He\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21181],"tags":[21041,56062,15295,15298,21042,8406,56061,39588,37863],"class_list":["post-76138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-porsche","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-c8d5cbc1-9e9c-47ca-b364-1692f123d9fe","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-porsche","tag-shorttitle-why-tandy-walked-away-from-porsches-gtp-program","tag-sponsored-false","tag-subsection-more-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}