The Next Chapter Starts Now: iRTES Season 7 Revealed as Season 6 Reaches Its St. Petersburg Finale
Returning teams receive the first opportunity to reserve a place on the 2027 grid as Champion Motorsports unveils an expanded six-round GTP + GT3 championship running from December 2026 through April 2027.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As the sixth season of the Champion Motorsports iRacing Team Endurance Series reaches its championship finale on the streets of St. Petersburg, CMS is already looking toward the next green flag.
Season 6 has been a compact but memorable return to the core of what iRTES was built to be: team endurance racing, two-class traffic, changing race conditions, strategy from the pit box, active Race Control, and a paddock in which performance matters but community still matters just as much.
Before the final trophies are settled in St. Petersburg, Champion Motorsports is pleased to officially reveal Season 7 of iRTES — an expanded six-race championship beginning in December 2026 and continuing through April 2027.
Once the checkered flag falls at St. Petersburg, iRTES will step away from championship competition for the autumn while teams celebrate Season 6, rebuild, recruit and prepare for what comes next. The first official on-track activity of Season 7 will be a non-points preseason systems test in November, followed by the championship opener at Daytona on December 6.
Proposed Shakedown format: open practice, short solo qualifying, 2-hour non-points feature, normal team-driver changes, and at least one controlled Code 60 / wave-by rehearsal. Final details will be published with the Season 7 regulations.
Okayama is an intentional choice. It served as the Season 6 Prelude venue, giving CMS a known operational baseline, while its relatively short lap produces frequent GTP/GT3 interaction — exactly what is needed to stress-test traffic management and neutralization procedures without consuming one of Season 7's six championship venues.
The recommended format is a compact 2-hour multiclass race using the full GTP and GT3 field. At least one planned Race Control neutralization should be triggered regardless of incidents so that every team experiences the revised procedure in live traffic. A second discretionary exercise can be used to test a different field scenario if Race Control determines it would be valuable.
CMS is targeting Sunday, November 15, 2026 for the iRTES Season 7 Shakedown, a non-points preseason test race at Okayama International Circuit — Full Course. Thanksgiving falls on Thursday, November 26, giving teams a full holiday buffer after the test, while the Shakedown also lands two weeks before Daytona FP1 and three weeks before the December 6 championship opener.
Season 7 will begin before the points do.
Before Daytona: The iRTES Season 7 Shakedown
Six Races. Six Different Tests.
Season 7 has been designed around variety. Four rounds draw directly from the DNA of real-world North American endurance racing. Daytona, Watkins Glen, Sebring and Road Atlanta are circuits where prototype and GT racing belong together naturally — places where traffic, pit strategy and long-run execution are part of the identity of the event.
But iRTES has never been at its best when every round asks the same question. That is why Mugello and Mexico City join the calendar as the two curveballs.
Mugello brings long, committed high-speed corners, flowing direction changes and fewer obvious places for a prototype to simply force its way past a GT3. Mexico City provides almost the opposite challenge: altitude, long acceleration zones, heavy braking and the tight confines of the stadium section. One rewards patience at speed; the other asks teams to manage huge closing rates before the road suddenly compresses.
| Round | Date | Venue | Length | Race Character | Planned Weather Concept |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dec. 6, 2026 | Daytona International Speedway | 4 Hours | Classic multiclass opener; banking, drafting, traffic and major braking zones | Mild and dry; partly cloudy Florida afternoon transitioning through sunset and into night |
| 2 | Dec. 20, 2026 | Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello | 3h20m | High-speed European challenge; aero commitment and difficult traffic timing | Cold, gray Tuscan winter day with a realistic possibility of intermittent light rain and a drying track |
| 3 | Jan. 17, 2027 | Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez | 3h20m | High-altitude wildcard; long straight, heavy braking and stadium traffic | Bright, crisp and dry; cool morning becoming a comfortable sunny afternoon |
| 4 | Feb. 7, 2027 | Watkins Glen International | 4 Hours | Cold-weather classic; high speed, elevation, the Bus Stop and the Boot | Cold, dry winter window; mostly cloudy with low track temperatures and no precipitation |
| 5 | Mar. 7, 2027 | Sebring International Raceway | 5 Hours | Season endurance centerpiece; bumps, concrete, strategy and darkness | Warm and mostly dry Florida afternoon, building toward a dusk-and-night finish |
| 6 | Apr. 18, 2027 | Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta | 4 Hours | Short-lap, high-traffic championship finale with elevation and constant multiclass pressure | Mild spring conditions with a chance of a brief passing shower before a drying late-afternoon finish |
Weather note: These are the planned event concepts, not fixed forecasts. Final iRacing dynamic-weather settings will be announced with each event briefing. Season 7 is being designed so that no more than two rounds carry a meaningful wet-weather component.
Daytona Opens the New Season Under the Lights
There may be no better way to launch the expanded championship than Daytona.
The four-hour opener is planned as a late-afternoon race that moves through a Florida sunset and finishes under the lights. The changing light, falling track temperature, long drafting sections and repeated GTP/GT3 traffic cycles should give Season 7 an immediate big-event feel without duplicating the length of the official iRacing Daytona 24.
From there, the championship travels to a cold-weather Mugello round before crossing to Mexico City and Watkins Glen. Sebring becomes the five-hour centerpiece of the season, planned to transition from afternoon into dusk and darkness, before the title is settled at Road Atlanta in April.
Race Control: Building on What Season 6 Taught Us
Season 6 was also an important development year for iRTES Race Control. The Code 60 procedure evolved during the season into a simpler rolling system with a five-second radio countdown, cars remaining in motion, an organized GTP field behind the overall leader and a separated GT3 restart group.
Season 7 will build on that experience with further enhancements to the Code 60 and wave-by / field-management processes. The goal is not to add complexity. It is the opposite: improve clarity, shorten neutralization time where practical, reduce opportunities for procedural confusion and continue moving the series closer to the feel of a professionally managed real-world endurance event.
Full procedures will be published in the 2027 Sporting Regulations before the season begins, and teams will have opportunities to practice the revised process before championship points are on the line.
More Meaningful Prizes — Not Just More Prizes
Season 6 placed a renewed emphasis on recognizing the people behind the results, including personalized championship awards and special recognition for achievements beyond outright wins.
Season 7 will push that philosophy further.
Championship teams can expect more unique and personalized awards designed around the team, its drivers and the season they accomplished together. Rather than simply increasing the number of generic trophies, the goal is to create awards that feel specific to iRTES and worth keeping long after the final standings are archived.
The championship will also bring back and continue the core side competitions that have helped give more teams and drivers something meaningful to race for across the entire season.
- 50+ Driver Championships for eligible GTP and GT3 competitors.
- Clean Team Awards rewarding teams that combine speed with low incident totals.
- Sportsmanship and Leadership Recognition honoring drivers who best represent the standards of the CMS community.
- Endurance / participation recognition for drivers who consistently answer the bell throughout the season.
Additional details, eligibility requirements and prize descriptions will be announced with the full Season 7 regulations.
Strategy Will Remain Part of the Identity
The weather at Red Bull Ring showed exactly why endurance racing becomes more interesting when there is more than one way to reach the finish. Fuel-tank limitations, changing conditions and driver rotation produced several legitimate strategies rather than one obvious answer.
Season 7 will continue to lean into that philosophy. Race-specific fuel and tire considerations can be used where they improve the event, while dynamic track and weather conditions will give teams reasons to think beyond the next lap.
The intention is not to manufacture randomness. The intention is to create races in which preparation, adaptability and teamwork can matter just as much as qualifying pace.
Returning Teams: Your Season 7 Window Starts at St. Petersburg
The first phase of Season 7 registration is intentionally focused on the organizations that helped make Season 6 possible.
Returning teams will have the first opportunity to reserve a 2027 grid position following the St. Petersburg finale. Once that priority phase is complete, remaining places will be opened to the CMS community and then to approved public entries.
Specific reservation instructions and deadlines will be communicated directly to team managers through the iRTES Discord and CMS channels.
From a Three-Race Reboot to a Six-Race Championship
Season 6 was designed as a focused three-round return: Homestead-Miami, Red Bull Ring and St. Petersburg. It gave CMS an opportunity to rebuild the series around race quality, active administration and a manageable championship structure.
Season 7 is the next step.
Doubling the championship to six rounds creates room for more storylines to develop. One difficult weekend will still hurt, but it will no longer define an entire season by itself. Teams will have more opportunities to recover, more strategic environments to master and more time for rivalries to evolve naturally.
It also creates something iRTES has always done well when at its best: a season that feels like a journey rather than a collection of unrelated races.
That journey begins on the high banks of Daytona in December, crosses Tuscany and Mexico City during the winter, continues through Watkins Glen and Sebring, and ends with a spring championship showdown through the Esses at Road Atlanta.
Celebrate Season 6. Then Get Ready for What Comes Next.
First, there is still a championship to decide.
St. Petersburg will close Season 6 with the GTP and GT3 titles, the 50+ competitions, Clean Team honors and the season's final sportsmanship and endurance recognition all coming into focus. The finale should be a celebration of the teams, drivers, Race Control staff and volunteers who helped put iRTES firmly back on its feet.
Then the paddock gets a short break before preseason preparation begins.
On November 15, the Season 7 Shakedown puts the paddock back to work. On December 6, the championship lights come back on at Daytona.
Six championship races. One preseason Shakedown. GTP + GT3. Thirty available entries. Returning-team reservations begin first. Public sign-ups will follow.
Season 6 is about to crown its champions.
Season 7 is about to raise the stakes.