The 1999 American Le Mans Series was the inaugural season of the IMSA American Le Mans Series, and is now recognised as the 29th season of the IMSA GT Championship. It was a series for Le Mans Prototypes (LMP) and Grand Touring (GT) race cars divided into three classes: LMP, GTS, and GT. It began March 20, 1999, and ended November 7, 1999, after eight races.
The American Le Mans Series officially replaced the dwindling IMSA GT Championship after the 1998 season. The Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), which organized the 24 Hours of Le Mans, allowed IMSA's owner Don Panoz to create a series closely modeled after the formula used at Le Mans. The first official ACO-backed event had been held at the 1998 Petit Le Mans, which was part of the IMSA GT season but allowed ACO-spec cars to compete. The success of the event allowed Panoz to form the American Le Mans Series, which continued until its merger with Grand-Am in 2013.
The following round was included on the original calendar but was later cancelled.
The inaugural ALMS season consisted of 8 races. Six were carried over from the previous seasons IMSA GT Championship which were 12 Hours of Sebring, Grand Prix of Atlanta, Mosport, Petit Le Mans, Laguna Seca and Las Vegas Motor Speedway. The only races not carried over were Lime Rock Park which switched to the USRRC schedule for 1999 and the second Sebring weekend. Sonoma and Portland joined the calendar to hold their first major endurance races since 1997 and 1994 respectively.
Originally the season finale was supposed to be the San Diego Grand Prix held on a 1.5 mile Road course at the former Naval Training Center. However, the season finale would eventually be moved to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway due to construction delays.
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AMG-Mercedes had planned on entering their Mercedes-Benz CLR into the final three races of the season but cancelled their Sportscar program after a disastrous performance at Le Mans.
<nowiki>*</nowiki> Was on the entry list but did not participate in the event.
A GTO class had been planned but was cancelled before the start of the season. The following four teams had been on the entry list for the Sebring 12 Hours before the class was cancelled.
Overall winner in bold.
Points are awarded to the top nineteen finishers in each class in the following order:
Exception however for the 12 Hours of Sebring, which awarded in the following order:
Teams only scored the points for their highest finishing entry in each race.