Roundup: 2nd Place Road America in the Six-Hour Motul Sportscar Endurance Grand Prix!!
Road America: The Race Has to Come to You.
Motul Sportscar Endurance Grand Prix | IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship | Road America Race Summary | August 2, 2026
Kaylen Frederick and the No. 5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 headed to Road America, the team’s home track, for the six-hour MOTUL Sportscar Endurance Grand Prix, the fourth round of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup and the first long-format race held at the 4.048-mile circuit in years. Sharing the car with Tijmen van der Helm and Porsche factory driver Laurin Heinrich, Kaylen came off the back of his first IMSA and endurance career podium at Watkins Glen looking to build momentum through a demanding, incident-filled weekend. With an excellent spectator turnout, the weekend hosted the largest attendance ever held at Road America.
Kaylen Frederick | JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 | IMSA GTP
Road America Highlights: JDC Miller Motorsports & Kaylen Frederick
JDC-Miller Motorsports finished P2 in GTP (and P2 overall, since GTP is the top class), 151 laps completed.
At race end, the JDC Porsche 963 was 1.960 seconds behind the winning Cadillac after 6 hours of racing and only 0.881 seconds clear of 3rd place.
Of note: This is JDC-Miller’s second podium in as many races for Frederick, and third podium in four rounds for the No. 5 program this season including the Laguna Seca win and the Watkins Glen podium.
Fastest Team Laps: Kaylen set the fastest team lap at 1:53.585 seconds and fastest average team lap pace.
Hard fought endurance stints have anchored JDC-Miller Motorsports, the only independent operation on the grid, launching the No. 5 Porsche 963 into a strong 4th place in the overall GTP Teams’ Championship.
Practice: Fast Friday, Rained Out Saturday
Free Practice 1 (FP1):
The weekend opened Friday with the No. 5 Porsche running fourth fastest in GTP with Heinrich behind the wheel. At the end of the session, Kaylen logged three fast laps before closing, getting a brief look at the track grip on the Road America “National Park of Speed” ahead of a Saturday schedule that would turn out to be anything but straightforward. At this point, the team strategy included Kaylen qualifying the car, and ample seat time in Saturday morning FP2.
Free Practice 2 (FP2):
Saturday’s second practice session arrived with pouring rain sweeping through Road America, and JDC-Miller elected to sit the No. 5 Porsche out of the wet session entirely rather than risk the car, one of three GTP entries to make that call. The tradeoff was track time: with FP2 skipped, Kaylen went into qualifying having turned only three green-flag laps all weekend.
Qualifying: Making Three Laps Count
August 1st/Saturday
Qualifying (Kaylen Frederick): 1:51.311 | P11 in GTP class overall | 2.078 off the pole 1:49.233
With minimal track time and no seat time on Saturday, Kaylen Frederick put the No. 5 Porsche 963 through GTP qualifying at Road America, rounding out the 11-car field in 11th on a drying track 2.078 seconds adrift of pole position.
Race: Push, Persist, and Profit from Patience
August 2nd, Sunday | Race Day
Kaylen started Sunday’s six-hour race from the tail of the GTP field with a clear brief from the team: run clean, stay in touch with the leaders, and don’t take unnecessary risks with the car. In his opening stint, Kaylen worked to recover ground lost in qualifying as the race’s chaotic run of full-course cautions began almost immediately. The Turn 11 incident brought out the first yellow just 12 minutes in, followed by more cautions for offs and contact throughout the field. Pushing to make up positions during one of the early caution-period pit sequences, Kaylen was handed a drive-through penalty for speeding in pit lane, owing to troublesome pit lane speed settings, noted also the day previously in practice sessions. The No. 5 crew would ultimately serve three drive-through penalties, plus a mechanical black flag for an open door, over the course of the afternoon. Despite the penalty, Kaylen kept the Porsche in touch and catching up with the pack through his stint, while running the best percentage of energy savings within the GTP field. Handing off to his co-drivers, Kaylen turned over the No. 5 Porsche in 6th position at the 2nd pit stop.
From there, van der Helm and Heinrich shared the remaining stints as the race’s nine full-course caution periods kept reshuffling the field. Late in the race, Heinrich picked up light contact with another car that punched a hole in the Porsche’s nose; the resulting pressure buildup in the cockpit eventually blew the passenger door open, triggering a mechanical black flag. The crew used a scheduled pit stop to fix the nose and door simultaneously, limiting the damage to seconds rather than a lost lap.
The race’s defining moment came with roughly 10 minutes remaining. Running fifth, the No. 5 Porsche was promoted when the two cars ahead of it, Kevin Estre’s Penske Porsche and championship leader Jack Aitken’s Whelen Cadillac, made contact battling for position at Turn 1 and were both eliminated from the race. A post-race penalty against the Aston Martin that had crossed the line second then elevated the No. 5 JDC-Miller Porsche to a runner-up finish as the race concluded under caution.
The Result:
Second place at Road America was JDC-Miller’s third podium in four races and Kaylen Frederick’s second consecutive podium finish, following his breakthrough result at Watkins Glen. It was a result built on the whole weekend’s work, and where a measured opening stint from the back of the grid kept the Porsche positioned to strike. The team’s composure through the day’s penalties and mechanical scare put them in position to capitalize when the leaders faltered late.
Michelin Endurance Cup Standing: 7th Position | 21 Points
Kaylen Frederick sits in 7th position in the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup GTP Drivers’ Championship with 21 points following the Road America endurance round.
Endurance Rounds Only: Because Frederick is strictly an endurance-specific asset for JDC-Miller, his entire 2026 IMSA campaign centers completely around this ranking, placing him as a top-10 prototype endurance ranking.
Rookie Standing: 1st Position | 21 Points
Kaylen Frederick ranks as the highest-placed true rookie driver in the 2026 IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup GTP Drivers’ Championship, comfortably holding the top rookie spot from his 7th position overall with 21 points.
Key Performance Highlights
Delivered under a compressed prep window: With FP2 lost to rain and only three laps of track time during combined practices, Kaylen took qualifying duty himself — and still got the Porsche into the 11-car field.
Anchored the recovery from the back of the grid: Started last and immediately went to work during a chaotic, caution-heavy opening hour, pushing to close the gap lost in a practice-starved qualifying session.
Weathered a drive through penalty that wasn’t his fault: Pit-lane speeding was attributed to faulty speed-control equipment (an issue already flagged during FP1) — yet Kaylen kept the car moving forward, handing off the car already back with the field and advancing to P6 at turnover (having started at P11).
Set the table for the podium: The opening stint’s pace and position kept the No. 5 Porsche close enough to the front that it was there to capitalize when the race’s late-race chaos unfolded — a share of credit in a result built across all three drivers.
Continued season progression: Road America marked Kaylen’s fourth GTP race weekend of 2026 (Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, Road America), adding experience across a widening range of conditions — wet-to-dry qualifying, a compressed practice program, and race-day adversity.
Reflecting on the Weekend (Kaylen):
“Very happy with this result,” Kaylen said afterward. “It is a bit unexpected as we didn’t have a lot of pace early on and then picked up some penalties, as well. We thought Watkins Glen was a roller coaster, but this was much more. Everyone worked really hard to overcome the adversities. The crew and the guys on the pit box kept us in position to take advantage of some luck which came our way, and here we are. Second podium in a row for me and I couldn’t be happier.”
Next Up: Motul Petit Le Mans: Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta – 10 Hours
Please watch these pages for updates around the Motul Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta from October 1 – October 3!
About Kaylen Frederick
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