SEBRING, FLA. (March 21, 2026) – Turner Motorsport took home hardware in Michelin Pilot Challenge with a third-place finish in the Alan Jay 120 and secured a strong top-five finish in the Twelve Hours of Sebring.
Luca Mars and Dillon Machavern earned their first podium together after qualifying the No. 95 BMW M4 GT4 EVO fifth in the 33-car GS field. Mars immediately charged to fourth when the green flag waved and briefly moved into third on the first restart before pitting. He maintained steady pace, and after two well-executed pit stops by the Turner crew, Machavern made the push in the final stint and made the pass to put the Turner BMW into podium position and held it until the checkered flag.
This marks Mars’ first podium with Turner Motorsport and the duo’s second top-five finish of the season, following a fourth-place result in Daytona. The No. 95 now sits second in championship standings after two rounds.
The No. 96 was caught in the middle of a multi-car pile up that instantly collected nine cars at the start of the race. Vin Barletta was checked and released from the care center, and the BMW M4 was retired.
“The car was pretty dialed in, but I knew I had to get a few more spots ahead of me to give Dillon the best position possible,” said Mars. “The guys gave me a great car and killed the pit stops, so I was able to go out there and attack the car ahead of me and close in on next one, then give Dillon the car in a pretty good spot so he could bring it home and finish it off.
“It was huge for the championship after coming off a fourth-place finish in Daytona. I’m super excited to get my first podium with Turner here and looking forward to the rest of the year.”
“It was a really fun stint,” added Machavern. “Luca obviously had an interesting first stint but did an incredible job once we went back green. It definitely showed us that the car had a lot of pace which gave Don a lot of confidence with the strategy.
“The guys over pit wall put us in an incredible position, especially with four tires. I got out behind Stevan, who was pretty quick, and but my tires came in, I was able to battle and gain a spot. Once we got around, we were in conservation mode while watching the gap behind.
“But hats off to the team; the Turner Motorsport guys are always the best in pit lane and on strategy, which put us in a really good position to be competitive.”
In the Twelve Hours of Sebring, Robby Foley qualified the No. 96 BMW M4 GT3 EVO third in the 19-car GTD field. An unlucky tire failure sent Foley to the pits, dropping into 16th, but the team earned several positions in pit lane thanks to shorter refueling. Francis Selldorff and Patrick Gallagher each completed their opening stints, keeping the car in the top 10. At the halfway mark, the split liveried-BMW ran in eighth.
Foley took over with just before the sun set over the horizon of turn 17 to make the push to the checkered. Team Taco was making progress running as high as fourth. Despite contact from behind that required a left rear tire change, and a late caution allowed Foley to rejoin the fight for the final 16 minutes and secured a strong fifth-place finish.
“I had an up and down day,” said Foley. “Ultimately, finishing fifth after some crazy battles. We banged the car up a little bit too much to really fight at the end, but everyone at Turner gave us a great opportunity and a great car to fight towards the front. It was a little bit of a mess there at the end, but we were lucky to survive and get good points, and we’ll move on to Long Beach.”
The IMSA season continues April 17-18 on the streets of Long Beach with the first sprint race of the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Michelin Pilot Challenge will resume May 1-3 in Monterey, California at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
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