Team owner Paul Miller – of Paul Miller Racing – anticipates their upcoming GTD Pro debut for the 2024 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship as the team will compete against factory-level competition.
After a dominant, record-breaking GTD campaign in 2023, Paul Miller Racing will step up from the GTD category to GTD Pro for the first time in their history.
After five class wins, a Sprint Cup title, and the IMSA GTD title from their 2023 campaign, Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow will continue into their eighth season together into the respective professional class for IMSA GT racing.
Whilst two BMW drivers will join the pair for the 24 Hours of Daytona season-opener on 27-28 January, it will be the main responsibility of the duo who dominated in GTD to pilot their talents against accomplished, factory-level GT drivers.
“We are looking forward to stepping up to GTD Pro in 2024 and competing against truly some of the best of the best in sportscars,” said Miller.
“It will certainly be a challenge, with the teams in GTD Pro having access to full factory driver 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 organisation, with Bryan and Madison having raced together since 2016 and entering our third year with the BMW (M4 GT3) will be a huge benefit as we take on this new test.”
Snow was recently uprated from a Silver to a Gold FIA licence, therefore making the move from an ‘amateur’ to a ‘professional’ in which Gold and Platinum-rated drivers are regarded as.
At the Endurance Cup rounds, the duo will be joined by 22-year-old Neil Verhagen who closed on the Pro-Am title for BMW in the GT World Challenge America, and will make his IMSA debut next year.
Sheldon van der Linde will be the fourth ‘Daytona’ driver, another capable BMW driver who is has one GTD Pro start at the 2022 Daytona 24 for BMW Team RLL, before embarking on Daytona, Sebring, and Petit Le Mans appearances in the Bavarian make’s debut GTP season with the M Hybrid V8 LMDh.
Paul Miller Racing’s Team Manager, Mitchell Simmons, added: “We’re thrilled to have two such accomplished drivers for BMW join our driver lineup in 2024.
“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.
“The step up to GTD Pro isn’t going to be easy by any means, but having a group of four really incredibly fast drivers will certainly make it a little bit easier.
“I look forward to welcoming them to the team and hopefully getting good results with them.”
GTD Pro will host 13 full-season entries, three for the Endurance Cup only, boasting double the number which competed at every round in 2023, with a maximum of 11 during the course of the season.
The premier GTD class showcases a number of talented drivers already announced, including the likes of Lamborghini works drivers, Ford’s Mustang GT3 debutants, the talented lineups of Corvette drivers and Pfaff Motorsports, and so forth.
Paul Miller Racing has taken only one Daytona 24 victory in 2020 with the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO, and is looking to better their eighth place result from the 2023 race in their #1 BMW M4 GT3.
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