Roxy vs. Grello: The Porsche IMSA Battle You Cannot Look Away From

Two Porsche 911 GT3 Rs. Two completely different philosophies. One race series with room for only one winner. Since the 2026 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season kicked off at Daytona, motorsport fans have been glued to the GTD Pro class for one very specific reason: AO Racing’s pink Roxy squaring off against Manthey’s iconic yellow-green Grello. Same car, different DNA—and the most compelling in-house Porsche rivalry in American sports car racing right now.

AO Racing: When a Dinosaur Conquers the Paddock

The AO Racing origin story sounds like a Pixar pitch. IT entrepreneur P.J. Hyett from outside Chicago met Gunnar Jeannette at a Porsche Track Days event in 2022. One year later, the pair were campaigning a 911 GT3 R with a T-Rex face across the nose—and building one of the most recognizable brands in all of motorsport. Rexy’s secret weapon isn’t peak horsepower; it’s personality. No other team in IMSA has merchandise lines that stretch around the paddock or fans sending dinosaur-themed hand-drawn artwork to the pit garage. After a rear-end collision, Rexy appeared at the next race with dental braces. After winning the 2024 IMSA GTD Pro team championship—with Porsche factory driver Laurin Heinrich taking the drivers’ title—Rexy gained a gold tooth. Halloween brought a full skeleton livery for the entire team and car.

The 2026 season introduced Roxy, the pink sister car built for P.J. Hyett’s daughter’s birthday. She made her debut at Sebring piloted by Nick Tandy, Harry King, and Alessio Picariello. And after Sebring, the plan was suitably dramatic. “We’re also sending her to Long Beach,” says Jeannette. “Roxy’s going to Hollywood!” When your race team narrative includes both a Le Mans podium and a Hollywood reference, you’ve built something genuinely different.

Manthey Racing: Thirty Years of Not Making Excuses

While AO Racing brought theater, Manthey brought a résumé spanning three decades and two continents. Founded by motorsport legend Olaf Manthey in the Eifel region of Germany and later taken over by brothers Nicolas and Martin Raeder—with Porsche acquiring a stake in 2013—the team has grown from 40 employees to over 350 across four business divisions. Grello, the neon yellow-and-green 911 whose name simply combines “green” and “yellow,” has long been a cult figure at the Nürburgring. Children send hand-drawn pictures to Manthey’s home base in Meuspath. Onesies exist in the Grello colorway. Manthey’s 2026 IMSA entry was its most anticipated American appearance in the team’s history, arriving fresh off back-to-back LMGT3 class victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2024 and 2025.

The team made its IMSA point immediately. At Sebring’s 12-hour race—one of the most punishing events in North American motorsport—Grello won by 1.43 seconds following an impressive late pass with under 90 minutes remaining. “We’ve set a very high bar for ourselves,” says Nicolas Raeder. “Wherever Grello goes, he must be in the mix to win.” First race, first win. Expectation met.

Same Car, Different Cultures

Strip away the liveries and the backstories, and both teams are running the same Porsche 911 GT3 R (992 generation). That’s precisely what makes this rivalry so compelling—there’s no equipment alibi. AO Racing’s philosophy leans into fan engagement and creative storytelling: the car evolves with the season’s narrative, every race adds a chapter, and the paddock becomes a theme park. Manthey operates like a German engineering firm that happens to race: disciplined, methodical, and allergic to anything other than the podium. These aren’t the same team in different paint. They are fundamentally different organizations wearing the same Porsche badge, and the 2026 IMSA season is their first real test of whether philosophy or pedigree wins out.

What the Roxy–Grello Battle Means for Road Car Fans

The 911 GT3 R isn’t some abstract prototype sealed off from road-car reality. It’s a direct descendant of the street-legal 911 GT3—same front geometry, same rear architecture, the same core philosophy of balance over raw power. Every aero test Roxy and Grello run through IMSA’s GTD Pro class validates the engineering that goes into Porsche’s road cars. IMSA GTD Pro is where Porsche proves its production-based engineering under the hardest sustained conditions in North American sports car racing. If you own a 911 GT3 and want to explore the same aerodynamic principles those race cars exploit—front splitters that generate meaningful downforce, rear diffusers that stabilize the car at triple-digit speeds—the components exist for street cars too. Vicrez makes aero packages directly styled after GT3 R-class competition parts, built for the 2022–2024 Porsche 911 GT3.

The rivalry between Roxy and Grello is everything right about modern GT racing: two legitimate contenders, a shared platform that removes any equipment excuse, and fan bases invested in the outcome. Whether you’re rooting for the California-cool AO Racing story or the Nürburgring-forged Manthey machine, you’re watching Porsche’s finest customer teams push the 911 GT3 R to its absolute limit. And if you’re a 911 GT3 owner who wants to explore similar Porsche 911 aero upgrades for your own build, you know where to start.

Your turn: Are you rooting for Roxy and AO Racing’s fan-first approach, or does Manthey’s ruthless precision have your vote? Drop your pick in the comments—and tell us if you’ve ever seen either car live at an IMSA round.