Starting from the rear of the Grand Touring Daytona Pro (GTD PRO) field at the 64th Rolex 24 At Daytona turned out to be a minor setback for Paul Miller Racing.
Neil Verhagen’s front-row qualifying effort in the No. 1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO for the classic IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship endurance race was disallowed after the car was found to have camber in excess of the permitted limit.
But despite starting 15th and last, Verhagen and his co-drivers Connor De Phillippi, Max Hesse, and Dan Harper prevailed to win by 2.223 seconds over the No. 75 Mercedes-AMG GT3 fielded by 75 Express and driven by Kenny Habul, Maro Engel, Australian Supercars champion Chaz Mostert, and IndyCar star Will Power.
It was class victory No. 2 for Paul Miller Racing at the Rolex 24, the other coming in GTD in 2020 with a Lamborghini Huracán GT3. It was also PMR’s second consecutive GTD PRO win in WeatherTech Championship competition, as Hesse, Harper and De Phillippi shared PMR’s then-No. 48 BMW to cap off the 2025 season at Motul Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.
Starting from the back of a race is always a daunting prospect, but the PMR drivers weren’t too fazed because they knew they would have 24 hours to work with.
“If we were going to get disqualified from one, this would be the best one to get it done,” said Verhagen, who was victorious at Daytona in his third Rolex 24 start. “Obviously, we were a bit discouraged about losing the points for qualifying, but I don’t think we felt we were starting off on the wrong note or something like that.
“We just knew that we needed to work like a team and that’s what we did. We pulled off a flawless race.”
De Phillippi also earned his second Rolex 24 class win (2019 in GT Le Mans in a BMW M8 GTE), while Hesse and Harper took home the coveted Rolex Daytona timepiece awarded as a trophy for the first time.
The No. 1 car moved into contention early in the fifth hour and was leading in GTD PRO just prior to halfway when the race went into a six and a half-hour holding pattern under caution due to heavy fog. The sequence of pit stops during the marathon safety car period pretty much put the PMR BMW back where it started, but it took Verhagen and Hesse just two hours to move back to the front of the field when racing resumed shortly before the 18-hour mark.
They encountered one final obstacle when the PMR pit lost radio contact with Harper in the final hour of the race.
“The last hour, my heartbeat was going crazy – emotions were flowing,” Verhagen related. “Dan didn’t have any communication with us, but he handled it perfectly. There isn’t anyone I would trust more in that situation. We had our guy in and he delivered.”
“The guys did a great job on all the pit stops and we got the track position, which to be honest was really key for us this weekend,” Harper added. “We knew it was crucial to get that track position for the final stint, and the boys pulled it off.”
The PMR group’s closest pursuers were not able to mount a serious challenge in the two-plus hours of green-flag racing that concluded the race. The No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsport Corvette Z06 GT3.R led nearly a third of the race (188 of 662 laps) but fell to seventh when Nico Varrone was pushed off-track by James Calado in the No. 033 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO just after the final restart.
That put Manthey’s No. 911 ‘Grello’ Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) out front for an hour, but a difficult final stint for DTM ace Thomas Preining left the car running fifth at the flag, just behind the rallying No. 4 Corvette.
Their collective woes allowed Mercedes-AMG to claim the final podium places, with the No. 75 car second and Scott Noble, Jason Hart, Maxime Martin, and Luca Stolz teaming for a third-place finish in the first GTD PRO race for defending IMSA GTD class champion Winward Racing’s new No. 48 entry.
“We did everything we could – there was nothing else we could do,” said Habul, who owns and operates the runner-up 75 Express team in addition to being part of the driver lineup. “It feels great to be on the podium after not finishing here the last five years, and we’ll just have to try to get one better.”
GTD: Winward’s Daytona Mastery Continues
Phillip Ellis called his late-race battle with Nicki Thiim for the lead and the ultimate Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) class victory at the Rolex 24 At Daytona “a little stressful.”
Ellis, in the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, fought door-to-door with Thiim’s No. 44 Magnus Racing Aston Martin GT3 EVO through Daytona International Speedway’s famous tri-oval with 10 minutes remaining in the annual 24-hour endurance contest. Slight contact between the cars sent both cars into lurid slides, caught masterfully by the drivers.
Ellis maintained a slim advantage under braking into Turn 1 and fought off another concentrated attack from Thiim before finally pulling away to a 1.367-second advantage over Thiim at the checkered flag.
Ellis shared his winning car with Russell Ward, Indy Dontje and Lucas Auer while Thiim sought to deliver a win in the Magnus Aston he shared with past Rolex 24 class winners John Potter, Spencer Pumpelly (who entered with a race-high 24 starts, although not consecutive) and team newcomer Madison Snow.
Tom Gamble, Zacharie Robichon, Mattia Drudi, and Dudu Barrichello (the 24-year-old son of former Formula 1 driver Rubens Barrichello) claimed third place in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo.
It was Winward Racing’s third GTD class win at the Rolex in the last six years, the others coming in 2021 and ’24. Making the day even better for the team owned by Russell Ward and his father, Bryce, their GTD PRO class entry finished third on its WeatherTech Championship debut.
“Honestly, these are my four sons, not just Russell,” said Bryce Ward, who participates as a driver for Winward Racing’s IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge effort. “It’s been such a pleasure to drive and work with these guys and also watch them be so successful in IMSA.”
But the talking point after the race was the intense duel between Thiim and Ellis, which brought the record Rolex 24 crowd to its feet.
“It was super-tight with Nicki, and to be fair, I think I just misjudged it a little bit,” said Ellis, a 12-time winner in IMSA competition. “I’m happy that we both continued and nothing bigger happened. Then we put on a good fight and a good show. Obviously, I’m super stoked that we came out on top. I can’t thank my teammates enough, who did an outstanding job this week and the entire race. The car was a rocket ship.”
Ellis only received a warning for incident responsibility after the close call with Thiim and kept on trucking. Pressed for details about the exciting dice, he responded:
“It was a good hard-fought battle between the two of us,” he said. “To be honest, once I got by him, I thought I would just drive away, and I was very surprised he stuck with me so much. I don’t know whether he found pace or did something when he was behind me, but I didn’t expect him to fight back so hard in the last 15 minutes. It made my life very hard. At that point I think I would have preferred being outside the car watching rather than being in it!
“I spoke to Nicki, and I think everything is good,” Ellis added. “It was a hard-fought battle, very on edge, but good motorsport.”
Both class winners also won the Michelin Endurance Cup portion of the event, scoring the most points at the four awarded intervals at six-, 12-, 18- and 24 hours.
The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship resumes March 18-21 with the 74th annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring at Sebring International Raceway.
