DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (January 22, 2015) – Paul Miller Racing will be looking for its second IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship endurance race win in a row in this weekend’s Rolex 24 At Daytona with team drivers Christopher Haase, Dion von Moltke, Bryce Miller and René Rast in the No. 48 Castrol EDGE Paul Miller Racing Audi R8 LMS.
The team closed out the 2014 season with a win in the 10-hour Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta last October and brings the momentum of that victory to this year’s season-opening race in Daytona. Paul Miller Racing has a team career-best result of second in the GT class in the 2011 Rolex 24 and has all of the elements in place to improve on that finish by one more position this weekend.
Haase, partnering with Bryce Miller and then team endurance driver Matt Bell, anchored the 2014 Petit victory and returns for a second season as a full-season Paul Miller Racing driver.
“It is great to have testing like the Roar in front of a big race like the Daytona Rolex 24,” Haase said. “Especially because everybody had a long winter break and it´s great to get back together and build a team atmosphere. To stay out of trouble until the end of the race is the most important thing, and the most challenging aspect of this race is the traffic situation with all the classes and speed difference. You also always need the luck on your side, but that’s just a part of racing.”
Von Moltke will co-drive with Haase for the full 2015 season in the No. 48, taking over for Bryce Miller who remains with the team this year in the four endurance races. Rast is competing in the Rolex 24 with Paul Miller Racing for the second year in a row.
Although von Moltke is new to Paul Miller Racing, he was part of the four-driver Audi team that won the GT class in the 2013 Rolex 24 At Daytona and is one the most experienced Audi R8 LMS drivers in North America.
“We’ve got really great teammates with Christopher Haase, Bryce Miller, and Rene Rast and a great team behind me,” von Moltke said. “So as long as we all focus on ourselves and do our jobs to the best of our ability, I think we’ve got a good shot to battle for a win here, but there’s a long way to go before I start talking about finishing the race, let alone winning it.”
Bryce Miller has cut back his schedule in 2015 to focus only on the Tequila Patrón North American Endurance Cup (NAEC) GTD championship, which still represents more than 75% of this season’s racing hours.
“It is an important role and particularly one that I know,” Bryce Miller said. “I have always enjoyed the longer endurance races and now I have to focus on doing my job as the third driver and keep the car clean and out of trouble, to support the season-long championship effort of Christopher, Dion and the team. It is a new situation for me but knowing what is expected of me in support of the whole team is very familiar.”
Paul Miller Racing’s competition relationship with Audi Sport customer racing complements a longtime retail partnership the Paul Miller Auto Group has enjoyed with the manufacturer. The dealership group has included since 1976 Paul Miller Audi, one of the largest Audi dealerships in the nation, which made the team’s on-track switch to Audi a logical decision.
The season-opening event of the 2015 IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship season, the Rolex 24 At Daytona can be seen in live coverage on FOX for the first two hours of the day-long race this Saturday, January 24, at 2 p.m. EST. A total of over 15 hours of live race coverage will be televised on FOX networks this weekend, with the majority airing on FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2. The broadcast schedule includes the final seven hours of the race and post-checkered flag coverage on FOX Sports 1, Sunday, January 25.
The on-track Rolex 24 At Daytona event schedule begins today, Thursday, January 22, with three practice runs, including the only pre-race night session at 6:30 p.m. EST. Prior to that, GTD qualifying will be held at 4 p.m. EDT. A final practice on Friday at 11:25 a.m. EST will be the last official on-track session before the start of the 53rd Rolex 24 At Daytona at 2:10 p.m. EST this Saturday.
About Paul Miller Racing: Paul Miller Racing was the top Audi Sport customer racing team in the inaugural season of the IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship in 2014 in which Bryce Miller and Christopher Haase co-drove the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Audi R8 LMS. The racing team is affiliated with the Paul Miller Auto Group, which has operated Paul Miller Audi since 1976, races in support of Full Circle Home, and competes with the support of Castrol EDGE, Search Marketing Group and Motegi Racing.
