each car was driven by two drivers who contested the entire weathertech sportscar championship. they were joined by one north american endurance cup racer and one or two extra drivers. these additional participants were recruited from a variety of racing categories, including the fia world endurance championship (such as gustavo menezes for jdc-miller motorsports), the deutsche tourenwagen masters (such as rené rast for mazda team joest), and the indycar series (such as ryan hunter-reay for wayne taylor) among others. some drivers competed at daytona on a one-off basis, such as fernando alonso, a two-time formula one world champion, williams driver lance stroll and formula e racers felix rosenqvist and antónio félix da costa. a. j. allmendinger, justin marks, brendan gaughan and austin cindric from nascar, and 2017 formula three european champion lando norris entered the event. stuart middleton won the sunoco whelen challenge by taking the gt4 category title in his debut year in the british gt championship, earning him a seat with action express racing.