Paul Miller Racing Shines In Six-Hour GT Fight

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Paul Miller Racing has discovered a lot of new things in 2025, including its outcome in Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s annual visit to Watkins Glen International.

It’s added a second car in Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO). It’s welcomed two new BMW GT drivers to America. And those two drivers in the second car came back from what is usually a race-ending penalty to visit a new place for them in the U.S.: victory lane.

Indeed, Max Hesse and Dan Harper recovered from a stop-plus-60 seconds penalty for running the red light at pit exit in the second hour to come back to win their first IMSA races aboard PMR’s No. 48 BMW M4 GT3 EVO in GTD PRO.

The pair started second – Harper having just missed a maiden Motul Pole Award after running wide at Turn 9 on a potential pole lap – and then recovered back to the lead in a methodical comeback, aided in large part by the double-digit full-course cautions. They led 58 of 160 laps, including the last 35 laps.

“The heavy rain came, and then it was just trying to survive, not crash. Until then we were debating whether it would go red flag like it did; I think it was last year,” Harper explained.

“Then unfortunately I got a penalty for crossing the red light on the exit of the pit lane, and at that point I sort of thought I had blew it.

“Yeah, then it was on to Max to bring us back up the order,” Harper continued. “He did a great job, also the team with the strategy. And we got fortunate with the amount of safety cars today that gave us the opportunity to come forward, and then they put me in the position to bring it home. It was a nice feeling.”

Both Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports and Ford Multimatic Motorsports had cars in contention but came up short of victories.

The ever-consistent No. 3 pairing of Antonio Garcia and Alexander Sims banked their fourth podium in five races with a runner-up performance, with the result moving them into the GTD PRO points lead by 62 points over previous leaders AO Racing. Laurin Heinrich and Klaus Bachler finished sixth in the No. 77 Porsche 911 GT3 R, as “Rexy” made its return to the track after “Roxy” ran at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and the streets of Detroit.

Rolex 24 At Daytona winners Frederic Vervisch and Christopher Mies appeared to benefit from some good karma meeting Buffalo Bills Pro Bowl offensive lineman and Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen Grand Marshal Dion Dawkins pre-race to finish third on the road in their No. 65 Ford Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3.

However, the car was sent to the rear of the class with an infraction found in post-race technical inspection, with the No. 65 car found to have cambers/pressures beyond the permitted limits.

That change promoted DragonSpeed to its second podium of the season, with Albert Costa and Davide Rigon sharing the No. 81 Ferrari 296 GT3 in the traditional DragonSpeed red, white and blue livery.

So close, yet so far away.

That’s the story for the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 of Jack Hawksworth, Parker Thompson and Frankie Montecalvo in Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) after the trio came up a half lap short of their first victory of the season, and after three consecutive second-place finishes.

Despite leading a class-high 83 of 159 laps after starting fifth, the amount of available fuel and energy on hand for the venerable Lexus came up short on the final lap. Hawksworth slowed from the lead entering “The Boot,” coming to a stop on course before Turn 7 of the 11-turn, 3.4-mile road course.

That would have provided a beneficial boost to their championship chances, especially with the championship-leading No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 having gone behind the wall early after sustaining damage in a multi-car incident with two Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) class cars.

But when one car falters, another benefits. Today, the beneficiary was the Motul Pole Award-winning No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Casper Stevenson, Tom Gamble and Zacharie Robichon. The car led 31 laps early in the race, but it was the 32nd that meant the most as Gamble brought the car home to the checkered flag once Hawksworth ran out of fuel.

It’s Robichon’s eighth, Gamble’s and Stevenson’s first career IMSA victories. Gamble couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the Lexus slow on course.

“The last two laps were just… I think my heart was about 190 BPM for the last two laps,” Gamble said.

“I think when it was looking like second at the end, I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to pay them back with a win with the car they gave us.”

Two surprise entries completed the podium, in both cases scoring their best results of the season.

Inception Racing’s No. 70 Ferrari 296 GT3 of Brendan Iribe, Frederik Schandorff and Ollie Millroy finished second. This was not only the team’s best result of the year, but also a pivotal one for Iribe in the pursuit of the Bob Akin Award, which at Watkins Glen had an increased grid with six Bronze-rated entries in the field.