No. 48 Castrol/Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Team Looking for Second-Straight Watkins Glen Podium Finish
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (July 2, 2016) – Paul Miller Racing and team driver Madison Snow will start third in Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen where the No. 48 Castrol/Paul Miller Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 was once again the top performing Lamborghini in IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition.
Snow will co-drive the No. 48 with full-season teammate Bryan Sellers and endurance-race specialist Bryce Miller in tomorrow’s race, which can be seen live on FOX Sports 1 (FS1) at 10 a.m. EDT.
Snow, qualifying the No. 48 for the second time this season after a ninth-place effort at Laguna Seca in May, turned a top lap time of 1:46.175 (115.200 mph) on his eighth and final flying lap of the 15-minute session on the 3.4-mile Watkins Glen International circuit.
The qualifying lap was the fourth fastest of the session but the No. 48 was moved up to third when the provisional pole-winning entry failed post-qualifying technical inspection.
“I am definitely getting a lot more comfortable,” Snow said. “Qualifying was the first time I actually figured out how to throw the car into the corners here at The Glen. It’s all seat time for us and track time for our team.
“It was very comfortable in qualifying, I felt like handling wise we didn’t need a whole lot of improvements, but we made the car comfortable to drive, and that makes for a quick lap time. We should do even better in the race.”
Sellers and Snow are in their first season as fulltime co-drivers for Paul Miller Racing, which is in its first year – and only fifth race – with the new Lamborghini Huracán GT3.
“Our main focus is just kind of moving into each race and constantly improving the drivability of the car,” Sellers said. “That’s all we have focused on this week so far. We started off with a difficult car balance and just tried to work ourselves better and better, not worry about what anyone else is doing, just what we can control. We progressively got better and better every session.
“In qualifying Madison just did a great job. He put down a really good lap early, made a good decision to do a cool down lap and was then able to get one more flying lap and a couple of tenths when it really counted and move up another position on the grid.”
Snow will start tomorrow’s race and Sellers will be the third and final driver in the rotation.
Bryce Miller, who is racing with the team for the first time since March’s 12 Hours of Sebring, will drive between Snow and Sellers. He noticed a drastic improvement in the No. 48 since the Sebring race.
Just prior to Watkins Glen, IMSA made Balance of Performance (BoP) rules adjustments that gives the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 the benefit of 2.0 mm larger air restrictors starting this weekend.
“Our BoP has started to come more into alignment with the competition now,” Bryce Miller said. “The more recent change has pushed us further in that direction. We now seem to have a relatively competitive package with which to go racing. The crew guys seemed to have really found a narrower operating window than what we were chasing going back to Sebring.”
Bryce Miller and his teammates drove for the first time the last two days on the recently repaved Watkins Glen circuit.
“It’s still Watkins Glen but it just changes the approach,” Bryce Miller said. “In the past you would have to adjust from concrete patches to transitioning back to pavement. That brought with it shock work challenges and a tire plan while you were going through all of that, but now the surface is so smooth.
“You can kind of choose your race line and it is much better for racing. You can be on the outside or dive in on the inside and not worry about a concrete patch in the middle. It is definitely better for overtaking now.”
Paul Miller Racing finished third in the GTD class in last year’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, and a similar – or better – result seems reachable in tomorrow’s race.
“It has just been good kind of dig-your-heels-in, nitty-gritty effort by everybody on the team so far,” Sellers said. “Now we have six hours to move forward into but we will just keep digging and improving the best we can.”
Follow Paul Miller Racing at www.PaulMillerRacing.com, on Twitter @PaulMilleracing and at the Official Team Page on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/PaulMillerRacing.
