Rained Out, Then Unstoppable: How Conor Shanahan Won the 2026 Formula DRIFT Title

The back half of the 2026 Formula DRIFT season came down to two things: weather nobody could control and a Toyota GT86 nobody could stop. Between the start of August and late October, the PRO title chase lost a round to a flooded track, swung by more than 50 points in a single weekend, then tightened again when the eventual champion went out early at the finale. Conor Shanahan left Long Beach with the crown by six points. Here is how the stretch run played out.

Indianapolis: the round that never finished

Round 5 at Indianapolis Raceway Park was scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 1, and it became a piece of series history for the wrong reason. A storm hit during the PRO Top 32, flooding the track with heavy rain and lightning in the area. Staff pumped water for more than five hours before the call came at 11 p.m. Formula DRIFT says it was the first time a round had been canceled in its 23-year history.

The rulebook language is blunt: points go only to completed sessions. Qualifying points stood, but nobody banked Top 32 competition points. In a year that finished with a six-point gap at the top, that is worth remembering. A full round of tandem points simply never existed.

The weekend was not a total loss. PROSPEC had finished its Round 3 the day before, and 14-year-old Camren Sorensen won it, beating Jason Webb in the Final on a two-to-one judges split after making fewer mistakes in the chase position. Dmitriy Brutskiy took third. Formula DRIFT lists Sorensen as the youngest driver to win a PROSPEC round.

Seattle: Shanahan closes the gap under the lights

Round 6 ran Aug. 21 and 22 at Evergreen Speedway, and it was the first Formula DRIFT night event at the track. James Deane took the top qualifying spot in his Ford Mustang with an 87.8, knocking Shanahan off the provisional pole at 86.4. That looked like the setup for another Deane weekend until his run ended in the Top 16, when he missed Zone 3 and lost to Matt Field.

The bracket got rough around him. Dylan Hughes and Dan Stuke collided in the Top 32 after both ran wide in Zone 2. Aurimas Bakchis retired with engine trouble. Rookie Cole Richards knocked out Chris Forsberg, then saw his own day end in the Top 16 with a broken handbrake. Fredric Aasbo took out Jack Shanahan and Field to reach the Final, where the judges sided with Conor Shanahan after a close battle.

• PRO Round 6 podium: 1. Conor Shanahan, 2. Fredric Aasbo, 3. Branden Sorensen
• Top qualifier: James Deane, 87.8
• Standings after the round (preliminary): Deane 164, Conor Shanahan 159, Branden Sorensen 140, Jack Shanahan 131, Bakchis 130, Aasbo 127

Las Vegas: the 47-point weekend

Formula DRIFT went back to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the first time in 14 years on Sept. 25 and 26, this time at The Bullring, and the weekend effectively rewrote the championship. Branden Sorensen qualified first with a 91.4. Conor Shanahan beat Field in the Final on a unanimous call, with Jack Shanahan third. Preliminary standings moved Conor to 212, while Deane sat at 165, Branden Sorensen at 164 and Jack Shanahan at 162. A five-point deficit had turned into a 47-point lead in one race.

The same weekend closed the PROSPEC season. Braden Lons scored his first Formula DRIFT win, beating Kasey Kohl on a split decision with Dustyn Farrell third. The title, though, went to Brutskiy, even though he lost his Top 8 heat. Once Webb withdrew from his Top 8 heat with front suspension damage, nobody could catch him mathematically. It was his third PROSPEC title after 2020 and 2021, and the first time anyone has won three.

• PRO Round 7 podium: 1. Conor Shanahan, 2. Matt Field, 3. Jack Shanahan
• PROSPEC Final Round 4 podium: 1. Braden Lons, 2. Kasey Kohl, 3. Dustyn Farrell
• Final PROSPEC standings (preliminary): Brutskiy 130, Webb 123, Lons 112, Camren Sorensen 110

Long Beach: a title clinched in the Top 32

The finale, billed as the Shoreline Showdown, ran Oct. 23 and 24 on the Long Beach street circuit. Shanahan needed only one heat win, and he got it in the Top 32 when Jhonnattan Castro briefly put two tires outside the track limits in Zone 4. That was the championship. Simen Olsen eliminated him in the Top 16, which left the door open for a closer final table but not for a different champion.

Branden Sorensen came in third, 48 points back, and a broken power steering pulley ended his hopes. Jack Shanahan qualified first in the Pulsar Turbos E82 BMW and marched to the Final, where he spun in Zone 6 trying to stay with Deane's Mustang. Deane took the win, with LZ third, and that result locked up second in the championship.

The rest of the silverware

Cole Richards was named Rookie of the Year, ahead of Cody Buchanan and Nate Chen, even after Tommy Lemaire eliminated him in the Top 32 at Long Beach. Ford took the Auto Cup with a preliminary 346 points to Toyota's 287, and GT Radial won the Tire Cup for a second straight year with a preliminary 532.

Run the numbers and the six-point margin on Formula DRIFT's preliminary table looks tighter than the season felt. Shanahan's two straight wins in Seattle and Las Vegas built the cushion, and he needed most of it, because he scored only 12 points at Long Beach while Deane added 53 and Jack Shanahan added 44. A title won on points is always a story about the bad weekends too. Indianapolis was a weekend when nobody got the chance to have either kind.