Derani will part ways with Action Express Racing at the end of the 2024 IMSA season

One of the IMSA SportsCar Championship’s most successful partnerships in recent times, Pipo Derani and Action Express Racing, will part ways at the end of the season.

Derani, who won top-tier IMSA titles in 2021 and 2023 with AXR’s Cadillac team, announced Saturday that this will be his final season with a team he joined in 2019.

In addition to his two titles with the team – one in the current GTP category and the other in the previous DPi class – the 30-year-old Brazilian took two of his four victories at the 12 Hours of Sebring, giving him a total of seven wins in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering-backed Cadillac.

With the team, he also won the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup titles in 2019 and 2023.

“We have mutually agreed not to continue together beyond this year,” Derani said in a statement. “We had a fantastic time together with two championships, two endurance championships and many race wins and pole positions.”

“I really enjoyed my time with this team and with Cadillac. I am grateful for everything they have given me, everything they have done for my career and I will always remember all the great times we had together.

“It’s time to win a third championship together this year before we go our separate ways.”

#01 Cadillac Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R: Renger van der Zande, Sebastien Bourdais

Photo by: Art Fleischmann

Derani’s move is the latest step in a significant restructuring of Cadillac Racing’s sports car program with the LMDh V-Series.R. Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti is considered a hot candidate to introduce a Cadillac factory team next year.

Chip Ganassi Racing announced in March that it would part ways with the brand at the end of the season after four years and remains in the running for WTR’s Acura contract – with a return of Meyer Shank Racing as part of the Honda brand’s ARX-06 plans in 2025 also being viewed as a possibility.

Current Porsche customer team Jota is expected to switch to Cadillac in the World Endurance Championship, while WTR has previously expressed its desire to take part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the future – something that Acura apparently won’t be doing any time soon – and also to continue in IMSA.

Laura Wontrop Klauser, who heads GM’s sports car racing programs, declined to comment on plans for next year, telling Motorsport.com: “We don’t have a timeline for an announcement yet. Nothing is set for either program at the moment.”

Wayne Taylor’s team most recently won the 2017 IMSA title with Cadillac, as well as multiple victories at the 24 Hours of Daytona and Sebring, before joining Acura’s ranks in 2021.