For the past two years, Paul Miller Racing has won the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup title in GTD Pro, showing that it had the resources and the talent to step up from GTD with ease after 2023. Last year, as a two-car team, Paul Miller Racing won last year’s Watkins Glen Six Hours, and Petit Le Mans, en route to Max Hesse and Daniel Harper winning the crown last year.
The team scaled back to a single car this year, and both Harper and Hesse were at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend instead of defending their Watkins Glen race win from a year ago. But their fellow 2023 BMW Junior Team graduate Neil Verhagen was part of Paul Miller’s 2024 Endurance Cup title run, and alongside co-driver Connor De Philippi, the young American finds himself back on top of the standings after winning Daytona and having a solid run early in Sebring.
“Over the last couple of years, Paul Miller Racing has always been very competitive in the Endurance Cup. We always seem to have a good strategy to maximise the points,” said Verhagen earlier this week.
The top three runners in each class earn five, four, and three Endurance Cup points respectively at half-distance and at the finish today (and, controversially, get two points at every interval even if they’ve retired).
“If we see that we don’t have maybe the ultimate pace to go and win the race, then we shift focus, and we try to grave as many points inside the race as possible. I think we’re one of the few teams that actually do shift the focus, to try and gravitate as many points at the checkpoints,” Verhagen continued.
A third straight Endurance Cup title is within reach for Verhagen, De Philippi, and Paul Miller Racing – but it isn’t the only prize that they’re in search of this year. The full-season GTD Pro title is also very attainable, and it is very tight at the top of the table.
After qualifying for the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, the #1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO is now just nine points behind the leading #4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R of Tommy Milner and Nicky Catsburg for the points lead with just the race today and four remaining rounds ahead of them. Throw in the #65 Ford Racing Mustang GT3 Evo and the #3 Corvette, and the top four are covered by 29 points, less than the difference between finishing first (350 points) and second (320) in class.
“For sure, this year the goal and especially with our championship standings at this point, is to focus on the actual championship that we’re still trying to win,” Verhagen declared. “We’re trying to show that we’re not just Endurance Cup champions, and that we have the means to go and win an actual IMSA championship.”
Unlike Paul Miller Racing, the Michelin Endurance Cup is the sole focus for Manthey in its first IMSA season, and especially after the #911 “Grello” Porsche 911 GT3 R won at the Twelve Hours of Sebring. Because of the clash with the 24 Hours of Spa, Klaus Bachler is the only one of Manthey’s Sebring-winning trio who can take the GTD Pro Endurance Cup on the drivers’ side. Bachler currently sits six points adrift of the Paul Miller BMW drivers, with six points available to gain on the car in front.
“If you go to a race, you want to win. In the end, if there’s points halfway through, you want to get all the points,” Bachler said on Friday. “But you cannot say 100 percent now, because maybe the race can develop so strange, so difficult, that you have to sacrifice the halfway points. And for sure, you don’t want this.”
In GTP, Daytona and Sebring winners Felipe Nasr, Julien Andlauer, and Laurin Heinrich have taken maximum points from both races, giving them a massive 12-point lead. Barring catastrophe, the only question is whether Porsche Penske Motorsport drivers Nasr and Andlauer will win the GTP Endurance Cup as drivers, or whether Heinrich can do it driving for both Penske and JDC-Miller MotorSports.
AO Racing’s trio of PJ Hyett, Dane Cameron, and Jonny Edgar have been shut out of wins in the first two races, but lead the LMP2 Endurance Cup by four points due to their otherwise great form – before they were caught out of position to win either of the big endurance races in Florida.
And after a perfect score in Sebring, AF Corse USA’s #21 Ferrari leads the standings in GTD. But Sebring winner Lilou Wadoux will fall away from the top spot because of her commitments at Spa, with Alec Udell taking her place alongside Simon Mann and Antonio Fuoco.
Images © Jack Webster / dailysportscar.com
