The United SportsCar Championship was formed from the merger of two rival series, the American Le Mans Series and the Rolex Sports Car Series, announced on 5 September 2012 and launched in 2014 under the sanctioning body of the International Motor Sports Association. Grand-Am Road Racing merged with IMSA, which moved its headquarters to Braselton, Georgia. The Michelin Endurance Cup was conceived from the start of the merged series as a dedicated honour for sustained endurance performance, separate from the overall WeatherTech SportsCar Championship standings.
Five events award Michelin Endurance Cup points. The IMSA season opens with the 24 Hours of Daytona in late January and closes with the Petit Le Mans in early October. The full list of endurance rounds is:
24 Hours of Daytona
12 Hours of Sebring
6 Hours of Watkins Glen
SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix
Petit Le Mans
Points are awarded at set intervals during each race rather than only at the finish, rewarding teams that maintain competitive pace throughout the full duration of an event rather than simply at the flag.
Six-hour races award points at three hours and at the finish.
Petit Le Mans (ten hours) awards points at four hours, eight hours, and ten hours.
The 12 Hours of Sebring awards points every four hours.
The 24 Hours of Daytona awards points every six hours.
The Michelin Endurance Cup is contested across all active classes of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The flagship class since 2023 is the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP), which replaced the Daytona Prototype International (DPi) category and accepts cars built to either IMSA's LMDh regulations or the Automobile Club de l'Ouest's Le Mans Hypercar regulations. Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) features pro-am driver lineups in cars from four ACO-licensed constructors: Riley-Multimatic, Ligier, Oreca, and Dallara, all built to the FIA/ACO 2017 Global LMP2 regulations. The GT Daytona Pro (GTD Pro) class, which replaced GT Le Mans (GTLM) from 2022, uses FIA GT3 specification cars with no driver-rating restrictions. The GT Daytona (GTD) class uses the same GT3 cars but requires at least one silver or bronze-rated driver per team, and prohibits more than one platinum-rated driver.
Former classes that have competed in the Michelin Endurance Cup include the original Prototype class (2014–2018), the Daytona Prototype International (DPi, 2019–2022), the Prototype Challenge (PC, 2014–2017), Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3, 2021–2023), and the GT Le Mans (GTLM, 2014–2021).
The Michelin Endurance Cup gives weight to the most gruelling rounds of the North American sports car calendar, providing an additional competitive dimension that separates teams capable of managing machinery, strategy, and driver lineups over many hours from those optimised purely for sprint-format rounds.
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