Hyundai Seals a Seventh Straight IMSA TCR Title as Its Champions Finish Third Overall
The No. 33 Elantra N TCR won the Road Atlanta finale and beat all but two GT4 cars outright, while Hyundai finished 210 points clear of Honda for the makes' crown.
Hyundai has won IMSA's TCR manufacturers' championship for the seventh year running, and the car that closed out the season did something no touring car had done in the series. The No. 33 Elantra N TCR of Mason Filippi and Bryson Morris won its class in the Oct. 2 Michelin Pilot Challenge finale at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta and finished third overall, ahead of 29 of the 31 Grand Sport GT4 cars.
The pair didn't need any of that. As our preview of the Road Atlanta finale laid out, a 200-point lead meant simply taking the start would clinch the TCR drivers' title.
How a TCR car ended up on the overall podium
On raw pace, it shouldn't have happened. The quickest GS cars lapped in the 1:26s, while the No. 33's best was a 1:28.423, according to IMSA's provisional results. Strategy closed the gap. The TCR front-runners made one pit stop to the GS field's two, which left them running near the front of the overall order late in the two-hour race.
Filippi took the class lead after the only restart and kept it until a late caution froze the order. The car crossed the line 6.994 seconds behind the overall-winning Circle H Racing Aston Martin and ahead of the new GS champions' BMW. Hyundai says the previous best overall result for a TCR car in IMSA was 15th.
A margin that grew in the finale
Hyundai entered the weekend 140 points ahead of Honda in the makes' standings. It left with a 210-point edge, finishing on 3,350 to Honda's 3,140, with Cupra on 3,070 and Audi on 2,940. Hyundai has now taken every TCR manufacturers' title since 2020, and it says it reached the podium at every round this year.
Bryan Herta Autosport, which runs all four Elantras, also claims the teams' title. In the drivers' race, the No. 33 ended on 3,080 points. Teammates Preston Brown and Denis Dupont were second on 2,810 after climbing from ninth on the grid to fourth in class. Maddie Aust and Mark Wilkins finished seventh, while Harry Gottsacker and Lance Bergstein ran in the top three until a 39-second penalty for an unserved drive-through dropped them to ninth.
The class podium was rounded out by Victor Gonzalez Racing's No. 21 Cupra Leon VZ TCR and Baker Racing's No. 56 Audi RS3 LMS TCR. MMG's polesitting Honda Civic was spun at the start/finish line and wasn't running at the end.
It's the first IMSA championship for both drivers. Filippi, 28, has raced for Bryan Herta Autosport since 2019 and now has 12 Michelin Pilot Challenge wins, all with the team, according to IMSA. Morris, 22, started the race and has four series wins.
The charity tally
The No. 33 also carried the Hyundai Hope on Wheels childhood-cancer livery, and the program pays out for every lap a Hyundai leads. The winning car led 40 laps at Road Atlanta, with that money going to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. Hyundai puts its 2026 total at $85,000 for children's hospitals near the series' tracks.
The TCR result was one of several titles settled at Road Atlanta that weekend; Cadillac took all three GTP crowns at Petit Le Mans the following day. Hyundai hasn't announced its 2027 TCR lineup yet. On this year's evidence, ending the streak will take more than one fast car.
