When Madison Snow scored the overall GTD pole at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, his third GTD pole in a row, he indicated it was a nice boost of confidence that Paul Miller Racing could run with the big dogs in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar …
When Madison Snow scored the overall GTD pole at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, his third GTD pole in a row, he indicated it was a nice boost of confidence that Paul Miller Racing could run with the big dogs in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD PRO class. The newly minted gold-rated driver, along with his fellow GTD champion Bryan Sellers, will have the chance to prove it as Paul Miller Racing brings its two stars and its No. 1 BMW M4 GT3 to the GTD PRO class for 2024.
PMR had indicated its desire to move to GTD PRO earlier in the 2023 season, but until now the driving lineup had not been confirmed. It will indeed be the pair that has has had so much success with the team, including the 2018 and 2023 GTD championships. Neil Verhagen will fill the third driver role for the Michelin Endurance Cup races, and Sheldon van der Linde will join in for the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
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“We are looking forward to stepping up to GTD PRO in 2024 and competing against truly some of the best in sports cars,” said team owner Paul Miller. “It will certainly be a challenge, with the teams in GTD PRO having access to full factory lineups and factory support beyond what you see in GTD, but I know we’re up for it. I have full faith in our program, and I believe the consistency of our organization, with Bryan and Madison having raced together since 2016 and entering out third year with the BMW, will be a huge benefit as we take on this new test.”
Snow and Sellers were an unstoppable force in 2023, setting records with five wins on their way to sealing up the championship before the Petit Le Mans finale. The pair have a long-running partnership, to the point where Sellers has stated that if he had to go racing without Snow, he’s not sure he’d want to do it anymore. Fortunately that’s not a decision he has to make in 2024.
Verhagen is a rising star in the racing world, and part of the BMW Junior Team. Since becoming the youngest driver to win the SCCA National Championship Runoffs in Formula F in 2016, he made his GT debut in 2020. Accomplishments since then for the 22-year-old from Ridgefield, Connecticut include a class win at the ADAC 24 Hours of Nurburgring and a Fanatec GT World Challenge America victory this season partnering with Samantha Tan at ST Racing. Daytona will mark his WeatherTech Championship debut.
South African racer van der Linde has been a BMW driver since 2019, and was the 2022 DTM champion. He has made several appearances in WeatherTech Championship endurance events, most recently with BMW M Team RLL in the No. 25 M Hybrid V8 GTP entry, in which he helped the team to a podium finish at Sebring.
“We’re thrilled to have two such accomplished drivers for BMW join our driver lineup in 2024,” said team manager Mitchell Simmons. “Both Neil and Sheldon are incredible talents and I think you would be hard pressed to come up with a better driver lineup for this BMW M4 GT3 than the four guys we have now.”
Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow and Paul Miller Racing aren’t strangers to championships. The 2018 GTD winners in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, they backed that up with the Sprint Cup title in 2022 despite not taking delivery of their new …
Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow and Paul Miller Racing aren’t strangers to championships. The 2018 GTD winners in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, they backed that up with the Sprint Cup title in 2022 despite not taking delivery of their new BMW M4 GT3 until after Daytona. They won the first Sprint Cup outing at Long Beach, and followed it up with a win at Lime Rock.
In 2023, not only did they repeat the Sprint Cup Championship, becoming the first to do so, they set a record for GTD wins – five, so far, at Sebring, Long Beach, Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, Road America and Indianapolis – and clinched the season-long championship with one race remaining, another record. The team had three poles in a row from Snow, including a GT-overall pole at Indy. And a strong showing at Petit Le Mans next month might propel them to the trifecta, claiming the Michelin Endurance Cup as well. It’s been an unforgettable season.
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“It’s pretty special,” says Sellers. “I think, [as a driver gets older], you definitely want to make an impact in any way you can. And having a year like this year makes an impact. I certainly have not had a year like this in my career before where we have five wins, and you clinch the championship with a race before the final race. It’s different, and it is very special. It’ll be nice to sit back and take it all in and appreciate what we’ve been able to do as a group.”
Sellers and Snow needed a bit of luck to clinch the title at Indy after a pit-stop miscue cost them valuable track position. Their closest title rivals. Heart of Racing’s Roman De Angelis and Marco Sorensen, ended up ahead of them; had they finished there, they would have had to wait until Petit Le Mans to seal the title. But it all came together.
“We got caught out by a yellow; we didn’t stop early enough, a couple of the other cars did, we got jumped out of the lead,” says Sellers. “And of course, the car we had to beat was the [Heart of Racing No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3]. And they come out in the lead.
“We lacked a bit of pace, and we didn’t have enough for the [No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG] or the [No. 78 Forte Racing Powered by US RaceTronics Lamborghini Huracan]. And as soon as those guys started to mix it up, our goal was then basically just to beat the 27, and sit there with them and watch the race go, which is difficult to do. But in the end, we were able to achieve our goal. And a big part of that was the guys in the pits; the final stop was really fast. It allowed us to jump back up to the front again. And I’m just really proud of all those guys and the job they’ve done all year.”
If you’ve wanted to find Sellers and Snow after a race this year, the podium has been a good place to start looking. Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images
With the championship secured, Paul Miller Racing is free to pursue the Endurance Cup however it sees fit, and maximize the points that come at Hour 4 and Hour 8 of the 10-hour race. Sellers, Snow and Corey Lewis sit third in the MEC, four points out of the lead occupied by De Angelis, Sorensen and Ian James.
“This isn’t a position that you get to be in very often where you just can show up and not even start the race,” Sellers says.
“But now that gives us the opportunity to try and chase one more in any way we deem necessary, to be able to take some risks to hit the hour marks there without worrying about the impact at the end of the race. And I think that probably will be our main focus. Obviously Petit is a very hard race. To me, it’s the hardest race on the schedule. Traffic, with as many cars as there are going to be, is tough.
“It’ll be a difficult race. It’ll be about who is able to keep their head on straight. And we’ll try and take some chances and see if we can end up with a good result.”
The team has proven its ability to take advantage of a situation and get a good result where it seemed like none was available. Sellers cites the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen as a prime example, and perhaps the race that stands out the most, even though they didn’t win. A steering wheel issue put them two laps down, but clever strategy and a bit of luck allowed them to get those laps back and charge through the field to second.
“You always have these races that probably could have ruined you, or races that make or break you,” he says. “That was probably the one for us that made a big difference. We could have walked away with last-place points. But instead, we walked away with second. And I think that was a defining moment for us.”
That effort, and the results the team has put up all year, portend well for next season; the team has declared its intentions to move to GTD PRO for 2024. What form that will take has yet to be determined, and perhaps the only change will be the color of the number boards. But however the team carries forward into the new class, there’s one more championship to take care of before the focus shifts.
Vasser Sullivan Racing and Corvette Racing looked pretty evenly matched on pace in GTD PRO, so it was pit stop strategy and execution on which the Michelin GT Challenge for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship ultimately turned to the favor …
Vasser Sullivan Racing and Corvette Racing looked pretty evenly matched on pace in GTD PRO, so it was pit stop strategy and execution on which the Michelin GT Challenge for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship ultimately turned to the favor of the No. 3 C8.R and delivered victory at VIRginia International Raceway to Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia. The boost to their championship hopes was small, however, as Ben Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth finished second in the No. 14 Lexus RC F GT3 and carry a 144-point lead into the final two races.
GTD, on the other hand, was another flag-to-flag romp for Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3, Snow taking a 12.187s victory over a fuel-saving Robby Foley in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3. In the process, the team set a record of five wins in GTD during a season, and all but clinched the Sprint Cup Championship, which would make them the first team to score back-to-back Sprint Cups.
“It’s amazing. It’s really wonderful,” said team owner Paul Miller. “I’ve just given everybody a hug on the team. It’s an unbelievable record. We’ve never won anything like that. We’ve never won more than one or two races in a season, so it’s crazy!”
Sellers and PMR even had the No. BMW in the overall lead after the first round of pit stops, but eventually the two leading GTD PRO cars would get back to the front, with Snow and Sellers finishing third overall.
In a race interrupted by only two cautions, and neither coming at a time when it would have any real effect on strategy, the first indication that maybe this wasn’t going to be a cruise for the polesitting No. 14 Lexus came after the first round of pit stops. Taylor took over the No. 3 C8.R from Garcia, dispatched Jules Gounon in the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes AMG rather quickly and immediately started knocking out fast laps. While Barnicoat would eventually take the fast lap back, it was an indication that Taylor had the bit between his teeth and intended to close the GTD PRO points gap to the Vasser Sullivan team.
Taylor’s first attack came as Barnicoat saw an opening to get by overall leader Bryan Sellers in Oak Tree. The move slowed Sellers enough for Taylor to also scoot past, but it also left Barnicoat vulnerable due to a lower corner exit speed. Taylor got alongside, had the inside line for Turn 14, but Barnicoat held the braking just a bit later and maintained the lead.
“I didn’t have a ton of confidence going there,” Taylor explained. “I think a lap before I braked kind of late and had a bunch of ABS interaction and almost hit the back of him. That lap I was going to be offline, so I wasn’t 100 percent confident that I would make the corner had I braked when he did on the inside. And yeah, he kind of did the exact same thing to me the last year when I had a similar run, so I knew he was going to go deep. At that point in the race, I knew had we got track position, it who would have transformed the race for us, but I also didn’t want to throw it away.”
Taylor would have to wait for the second round of pit stops to take the point. Corvette Racing brought Taylor in first, with just under an hour to go. The undercut strategy was compounded by the No. 14 Lexus stalling as Barnicoat was leaving the pits. He got it going quickly, and emerged from the pits ahead of Taylor; but Taylor was at full speed, and passed Barnicoat easily going into Turn 1. Barnicoat slid wide on cold tires, giving Taylor more of a buffer. Barnicoat kept the gap around 2s to Taylor until the end, but could never really close and attack, finishing second by 2.068s. It was a nice comeback from what was almost a sure win in the previous race at Road America, ruined by a penalty for insufficient fueling time.
“Pretty much that whole race I was pushing, even on the first cycle, just to close the gap to the Lexus and to see if we could make them make a mistake,” explained Taylor. “So when the [second] yellow came out, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen – those guys restarted really strong. The guys made an amazing call to kind of shortfill, get us out front track position-wise and then it was just down to saving fuel, managing tires and maintaining the gap. I was counting down the laps from about 25 to go, so I was very happy to see that checkered flag.”
The earlier stop left Taylor needing to save fuel, and he was denied his requested post-victory burnout because the team didn’t believe he had a sufficient supply to roast the rear tires and still get back to the pits.
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“It was amazing,” declared Taylor, whom his teammate compared to a Swiss watch. “That’s down to Corvette Racing, calling that strategy, getting us that track position. And then when they told me that fuel number, I was definitely worried. But the car was so good in fuel save mode, it actually helped me save the tires.”
The victory was the 115th for Corvette, 29th for Garcia and the 33rd for Taylor in IMSA competition as Taylor enters his final two races for the team. Next year he moves back to Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport to drive the team’s second Acura ARX-06 GTP car with Louis Deletraz. For Garcia, who moved the Corvette into second during the first stint, consistency was key to victory.
“Yesterday, we tried to do something different in qualifying, because everybody seemed to be so close,” he explained. “So that probably gave us some indication on how to set up for today and the car was pretty good. So I’m glad that during the first stint the car was where it needed to be. I was able to close to second. The Lexus was very, very strong today. So in a way we we kind of managed to stay in contention. We just had to be there and put pressure and at some point somebody will make a mistake, and it wasn’t us. Then Jordan worked really, really good for the rest of the race. Another great example of pure consistency and very, very well executed.”
Klaus Bachler and Patrick Pilet in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports was a distant third in GTD PRO. Their run was aided by a strategy that had the No. 9 topping off fuel during the second full-course caution, leading to a shorter second stop. But what really secured the podium for them was Bachler having a bit of contact with the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes AMG driven by Jules Gounon a little past the halfway mark of the race. The Porsche suffered minor damage, but the Mercedes needed a long stop to get bodywork back in a position so that the car could continue.
Jake Galstad/Lumen
For Paul Miller Motorsports, the dream season continues. Snow put the No. 1 BMW on pole in yesterday’s qualifying, and never faced a serious challenge during the first stint. Sellers took over the car for the middle portion of the race, and because PMR was one of the first teams to pit and thus took less fuel, Sellers had the overall lead with PRO cars giving him a buffer behind. A slight bobble in Oak Tree let Barnicoat in the Lexus and Taylor in the Corvette get through, but the No. 1 never faced any real threat from another GTD car, either while Sellers was in the car or when Snow took it back over.
“If there was a secret, I definitely wouldn’t be trying to give it out,” said Snow of the team’s success this year. “But it’s really the team. We just worked really well together. We’re always trying to improve, we’re always helping each other out. But having grown as a co-driver really makes that possible. And Brian doesn’t get nearly enough credit for
how hard he works and how hard he brings the whole team together, but also car setup and strategy and everything else.”
But Snow was the driving force behind the victory today, countered Sellers.
“What [Madison] has stepped up and done this year has been has been unbelievable,” he said. “Like today, he, pardon my language, but he really saved my ass today. I didn’t feel well all weekend and I had to tell him last night, ‘Listen, if I don’t get better, I’m going to need you.’ You just have that trust in him all the time.”
The best opportunity for any team to stop the PMR juggernaut was Inception Racing. Frederik Schandorff was charging in the No. 70 McLaren 720S and had the car up to second. But during the final round of pit stops, a wheel nut rolled under the car and a mechanic reached under to retrieve it. Doing any work under the car during refueling is violation of IMSA rules, and the team was handed a drive-through penalty. Schandorff got the car back up to seventh, but a far cry from what might have been possible.
It was a BMW one-two on the GTD podium as Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher finished second in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport M4 GT3. Gallagher was saving fuel during his first stint, and like PMR, Turner brought both the No. 96 and the No. 97 M4 of Bill Auberlen and Chandler Hull into the pits after only 50 minutes, 15 of which had been run under yellow. The shorter fill time helped propel the No. 96 from sixth to third, and eventually into second as Frankie Montecalvo in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 faded.
It was nearly a full BMW podium, until Philip Ellis pushed the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG into third past Auberlen in the No. 97. The BMWs were clearly strong at VIR.
“I think it’s a combination of things,” said Sellers when asked why the BMWs were so good here. “The BMW was obviously fantastic today and Madison did a great job. You know, I think one of the things that fits it the most is the high-speed nature of the track. There are a lot of places where it’s small and tight and the cars struggles, but here at VIR, where it’s wide and sprawling, it really stretches its legs so we’re super happy to be a part of it.”
For third-place finisher Winward, it was a nice change for last year’s winners Ellis and Russell Ward. The team has had its struggles this season, so a podium was quite welcome.
The two caution periods were both caused by single-car crashes, the first coming only 10 minutes into the race when David Brule crashed the No. 92 Kellymoss with Riley Porsche 911 GT3 R in The Snake. The second occurred when Misha Goikhberg, attempting to get the No. 78 Forte Racing Powered by USRT Lamborghini Huracán back to the pits after a malfunctioning ABS system had sent him off course in Turn 1, lost the car under braking for Turn 14 and buried the Lamborghini in the tire wall. Neither driver was injured in their respective incidents.
The current points leaders in both GTD PRO and GTD demonstrated a good part of the reason they’re at the front by taking the Motul Pole Awards for Sunday’s Michelin GT Challenge at VIRginia International Raceway. In high temperatures that produced …
The current points leaders in both GTD PRO and GTD demonstrated a good part of the reason they’re at the front by taking the Motul Pole Awards for Sunday’s Michelin GT Challenge at VIRginia International Raceway. In high temperatures that produced different track conditions than the drivers had seen so far this weekend, Jack Hawksworth took the GTD PRO and overall pole for the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus squad, bringing his total pole count to 10. He would have tied Madison Snow in that statistic, but Snow added another to his total by putting the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 on the GTD pole, qualifying fourth overall.
Hawksworth’s best lap of 1m44.780s — 112.35mph around the 3.27-mile, 17-turn circuit — didn’t match the quick times from Saturday morning’s session and were well off the 1m43.356s record held by Ross Gunn, thanks to the hot weather. It was enough, though, to snatch the pole by 0.096s from Daniel Juncadella in the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes AMG.
“Can’t get better than pole, right? So that was good,” declared Hawksworth. “Mega weekend so far. It’s been brilliant and the boys have been fantastic and the car has been working really well. Heads down for tomorrow now, but very happy with it.
“The temperature outside is absurd. The track grip was a lot different than we had in practice two. It was greasy and I just tried to put a clean lap together. The guys obviously gave me a really fast car; the Lexus was working really well. Just tried not to make any mistakes. It was easy to overdrive, I think.”
For Juncadella, who was quickest in the morning session after the No. 79 suffered a fire yesterday, the results were a disappointment.
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“First, great job by the crew to get the WeatherTech Mercedes-AMG GT3 back together after what happened yesterday,” Juncadella said. “I didn’t have the smoothest qualifying session. I think Road America was better. It was so close to pole that it hurts. Third time this year I have just missed out on pole. I made a small mistake, then on the last lap I was able to get close. It’s a shame to miss out on pole by such a small margin.”
Antonio Garcia was third in the No. 3 Corvette Racing C8.R with a 1m45.133, the last PRO car before six GTD cars. Patrick Pilet (No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R) and Gunn (No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3) were 10th and 11th overall, respectively.
Snow’s 11th pole position, and second of 2023 – the only GTD driver to have more than one so far this season – came courtesy of a 1m45.225s lap to best Aaron Telitz in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 by 0.153s. Telitz’s second attempt at a flyer was hurt by running wide at the exit of Oak Tree. Loris Spinelli qualified the No. 78 Forte Racing Powered by USRT Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 third with a 1m45.416s lap.
“The track was definitely slippery out there,” Snow explained. “I had two mock qually runs in the first practice, so I definitely went into qualifying knowing exactly where my brake points were and what I needed to do. [At] he beginning of qualifying, I went out on my first good lap and immediately went wide in [Turn] 1 and realized, ‘OK, I’m going to need to reevaluate what I’m doing out here.’ Just accept the track for what it was, and it was slippery. Super hot, but that is what it is. It was about not making mistakes and just putting a lap together.”
Mike Skeen (No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes AMG GT3) and Patrick Gallagher (No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3) completed the top five in GTD. Gallagher had been near the top of the time sheets in the two previous practice sessions, but an off-course excursion during qualifying likely scuttled his chances for pole.
Up Next: A 20 minute warmup at 8:15 a.m. ET ahead of a 2:10 p.m. race start.
It was a good day to be a GT polesitter in the IMSA SportsCar weekend at Road America. While the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 squad had a lot of difficulties in the early part of the season, plus a big crash at Canadian Tire …
It was a good day to be a GT polesitter in the IMSA SportsCar weekend at Road America.
While the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 squad had a lot of difficulties in the early part of the season, plus a big crash at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park that required a complete rebuild of the car, they’ve come on strong with consecutive wins, with Sunday’s Road America victory coming from pole.
The day might have gone to the No. 3 Corvette C8.R of Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia had the team not made a small error in refueling time. Instead of continuing to fight off Gunn for the lead, Garcia had to roll through the pits late in the race, costing the No. 3 C8.R any shot at victory.
“We’ve had a package that has been quick enough, competitive enough to compete at the front,” said Gunn. “But things just hasn’t haven’t quite clicked. So happy that now things are starting to work and obviously we’ve had two back-to-back wins. And ideally we want to keep that momentum going. We were a bit fortunate today as well. We were really probably trailing Corvette for the majority of the race; we had a really good fight — nice hard fight with Garcia which was fun — but at the end of the day they made a small mistake and they had to pay for it. We got lucky that we got the win.”
Ben Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth ended up second in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus, followed by Taylor and Garcia. The Lexus duo now lead the Corvette squad by 169 points in the GTD PRO standings, with WeatherTech Racing’s Daniel Juncadella and Jules Gounon third, another 47 points back.
Snow and Sellers may have been stalked by a McLaren, but their start from pole set them up for success from the very beginning. Geoffrey M. Miller/Lumen
Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers might have won their fifth GTD race of the season, and won from pole going virtually flag-to-flag, but hey had a McLaren breathing down their neck the entire time. While Frederik Schandorff and Brendan Iribe were close, they could never mount a real attack on the No.1 BMW.
“We came out of the gate strong,” said Snow. “This repave was difficult for a lot of people. Fortunately it seemed like it really suited the BMW well. It just handled great out the gate and qualifying was the best car I’ve ever had handling wise.
“When the race started, I got the GTD pro cars past me. It’s a decision you have to make whether you want cars between you to help or whether it’s better to have them ahead. They ended up going around me and that was that — was perfect for me because then I wasn’t worried about having them right behind me. Then I just pushed hard as I could to try and get a gap back. The McLaren was fast and strong all day and never gave us a break.”
Snow both started and finished the race, with Sellers handling the middle stint. That was a decision made mid-race, and one Sellers says he asked for.
“I asked because I felt like his opening stint was so strong and I felt like we had a very good car,” Sellers explained. “There’s always something very special about being the one to finish a race, being the one that gets across the checkered flag and I felt that today – everyday, but today undoubtedly – that he could be the one to do that and should be the one to do that. You want these things right? You want them for the people you share the car with and you want those moments and everyone to be able to experience those moments. For me, it’s just a show of faith that we have in Madison and what he’s capable of.”
Mikael Grenier and Mike Skeen recovered from a big practice crash to finish third in the No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes AMG. Loris Spinelli and Misha Goikhberg were fourth in the No. 78 Forte Racing Powered by USRT Lamborghini Huracán, followed by Aaron Telitz and Frankie Montecalvo in the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F.
Madison and Snow padded their GTD lead, now 205 points over Marco Sorensen and Roman De Angelis for Heart of Racing. Iribe and Schandorff are third, another 134 points back.
Going a bit off strategy, plus some misfortune for competitors, allowed Corvette Racing with Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia to claim their first GTD PRO victory of the season in the No. 3 C8.R at the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire …
Going a bit off strategy, plus some misfortune for competitors, allowed Corvette Racing with Jordan Taylor and Antonio Garcia to claim their first GTD PRO victory of the season in the No. 3 C8.R at the Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park. Brian Sellers and Madison Snow, meanwhile, claimed their third GTD victory of the season for Paul Miller Racing in the sixth round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Taylor brought the Corvette into the pits for the first time only 33 minutes into the race – far earlier than necessary, but far enough in that they could likely make it to the end with one more stop – and handed the car over to Garcia. Meanwhile, local favorite Pfaff Motorsports went for an opposite strategy, pitting as late as possible — the differing strategies actually coming together at the end of the race.
Without some misfortune for the frontrunners, though, Corvette Racing would have had a tougher time taking the win. The first GTD PRO competitor to fall brought out the race’s first full-course caution halfway into the race. Contact between Ross Gunn in the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin and Jules Gounon in the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes AMG in Turn 8 sent Gunn’s Aston hard into the tire wall. Gunn was evaluated by the medical team and released; the No. 79 had to serve a drive-through penalty for incident responsibility.
The second incident occurred on the penultimate restart with a little more than an hour in the 2h40m contest left with Patrick Pilet leading in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3R. Ben Barnicoat in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus attacked for the front, but ran out of room and went off track; Garcia seized the moment to pass them both and take the lead.
“On the restart, I knew that the Porsche was the only one that gambled on a different strategy, jumped us, and I was kind of first-row spectator into Turn 1 watching them going side by side, which I think never works here,” said Garcia. “Once I saw that, I was kind of alert and going for it and made the move, went into the lead. Then I think we had strong pace, especially on the front.”
Meanwhile, Barnicoat took the Lexus to the pits with a leak in the cooling system, the car eventually going behind the wall and ending an 11-race podium streak for him and Jack Hawksworth. However, with Gunn out, the No. 14 squad still collected fourth-place points.
Garcia was able to hold off Pilet to the end, the Corvette Racing team collecting their first victory since Sebring last season, with Pfaff’s Pilet and Klaus Bachler second followed by Gounon and Daniel Juncadella in third.
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“We’ve definitely struggled here and there,” said Taylor. “But I felt like we’ve been executing very well in a lot of the races and the results just haven’t been there. We’ve had a lot of podiums here and there, but it’s nice to for everything to click and go our way. The guys called great strategy to kind of undercut everyone at the beginning, jumped up a couple spots into second and Antonio had a great restart there to jump into the lead. It was kind of stressful to watch, being mixed in with the GTD cars, but he stayed out of trouble and I think we had a pretty quick car in clean air. It’s nice to get a Corvette back into victory lane.”
Jake Galstad/Lumen
Snow and Sellers were aided by some misfortune for a close competitor as well. The No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus of Frankie Montecalvo and Aaron Telitz qualified second but had to have an engine change after morning warmup and thus started at the back. In addition, because they missed the installation lap, the No. 12 had to start from pit lane and serve a drive-through penalty and were never a factor.
That left only polesitter Roman De Angelis in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage for Snow to deal with at the start.
“After qualifying yesterday, I knew it was gonna be tough,” Snow said. “We got fortunate with the Lexus with their engine change and starting at the back, so I just had Roman to fight with. There were two GTD PRO cars I had to deal with, but once they were out of the way, and it was just Roman, Roman and I raced hard for a couple of laps and then I ended up getting him around the outside of (Turn) 8. It shows in this field that you can’t do that with everybody that’s out there on the track with you. Roman’s one of them that you definitely can, so he’s a great person to race with.”
From there it was relatively smooth sailing for Snow and Sellers, although Sellers had a hard-charging Frederik Schandorff in the No. 70 Inception Racing McLaren catching him in the closing stages. The final full-course caution with only five minutes left put play to any challenge, and Schandorff and Brendan Iribe finished second. Mike Skeen and Mikael Grenier were third in the No. 32 Team Korthoff Motorsports Mercedes AMG.
Gradient Racing suffered a heartbreak while in a good position for Katherine Legge and Sheena Monk to score a good placing, or even a victory, in the No. 66 Acura NSX GT3 Evo22. Having pitted right before the short yellow with 57m left, Legge would be able to make it to the end while the rest of the GTD cars in front of them would have had to pit without another long yellow. A short time later, Legge was back in the pits with a brake issue, the screw that holds the pads in the left-rear caliper backing out. The Acura was repaired and continued, seven laps down.
Barnicoat and Hawksworth hold the GTD PRO points lead at 2110, 96 points ahead of Gounon and Juncadella, with Garcia and Taylor another 13 points back. Sellers and Snow extended their GTD points lead, now at 212 over De Angelis and Marco Sorensen. Telitz and Montecalvo are another seven points back in third, with Shandorff and Iribe moving into fourth.
The GTD PRO and GTD cars get their own race next, with a GT-only contest at Lime Rock Park in two weeks.
A rash of yellows late in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring allowed many GTD and GTD PRO cars to go far farther on fuel than they would have been able to otherwise, the top cars in both classes running around an hour and 50 minutes from their last …
A rash of yellows late in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring allowed many GTD and GTD PRO cars to go far farther on fuel than they would have been able to otherwise, the top cars in both classes running around an hour and 50 minutes from their last pit stop to the finish.
Pfaff Motorsports claimed the GTD PRO victory with Patrick Pilet, Klaus Bachler and Laurens Vanthoor in the No. 9 Porsche 911 GT3 R. It was a bit of redemption after a crash in qualifying that left the team with a host of repairs in order to make the race. While the No. 9 Porsche didn’t seem to have the pace to fight for the overall win against the No. 3 Corvette and the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes-AMG, the fuel strategy paid off in the end.
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“It’s just amazing. The whole group of people in the team just repaired the car until 1 a.m., I think, yesterday,” said Pilet.“ And they rock so much in the race with the strategy, with all the pitstops. Sometimes we get bad luck with yellows but we never give up, we always stay focused. We were not the quickest, but we have such such a good group of people. These two guys are amazing also. Klaus, it’s his first time here so we know how difficult it is to drive on this track and Laurens did an amazing job to bring back the car in front.
“They call me the expert of fuel saving. I have a lot of challenge with Laurens in the past in different cars and I was pretty good at that. They chose me to finish the race because we know it can be a big advantage and today it paid off. We were clearly not the quickest but we just we just gambled on the yellows and we won.”
The Corvette and Meercedes-AMG battle for GTD PRO honors raged for much of the race, and the pair usually separated themselves from the rest of the field. The No. 79 WeatherTech squad of Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon and Maro Engel ended up third, behind Jack Hawksworth, Ben Barnicoat and Kyle Kirkwood in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F. The polesitting Corvette had its own issues late, repairs for a broken spring putting them a lap down, then getting caught up in two separate incidents, including the final one that took out the top three cars in GTP, as well as the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 296.
As the sun set over Sebring, Paul Miller Racing was setting up to lead home a GTD BMW one-two. Jake Galstad/Lumen
The No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW squad of Madison Snow, Bryan Sellers and Corey Lewis claimed GTD with a similar strategy for the trio’s second victory in the Twelve Hours.
“It was tricky for us because you know, we made that final stop, then a bit more than an hour and 36 or something it went yellow,” explained Sellers. “And we debated whether we would come in or not because a couple of cars behind us had stopped a little bit sooner and we were worried that they would fill faster than us at the end. We made a call to pit with the leaders and the No. 27 (Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage) stayed out; when he stayed out, we stayed out. Once that happened our fate was kind of sealed once that yellow came again because now we were just over an hour left and those cars had only stopped two laps ago. So we had no option. For us if the only thing was to run as long as we could and hope for another yellow. A couple of the other cars stopped, and I’m not sure I understand why they stopped because everyone else was making it to the end, and so then you were basically kind of relegated to fifth or back. For us, we backed ourselves into a corner and got super fortunate with how it came out.”
The Heart of Racing squad would have their own difficulties in the closing stages, breaking steering and going off when Marco Sorensen caught caught in the middle of a GTD PRO battle between the No. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracán and the No. 3 Corvette.
It was a BMW one-two, as Robby Foley, Patrick Gallagher and Michael Dinan finished second in the No. 96 Turner Motorsport M4. New-for-2023 team Kellymoss with Riley pulled of a third place finish with David Brule, Alec Udell and Julien Andlauer in the No. 92 Porsche 911.
