Third-Place Showing in Castrol EDGE/Paul Miller Racing No. 48 is First Podium for Lamborghini Huracán GT3 in IMSA GTD
BOWMANVILLE, Ontario, Canada (July 11, 2016) – Paul Miller Racing and team drivers Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow scored a season-best third-place finish Sunday at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in the No. 48 Castrol EDGE Lamborghini Huracán GT3.
The top-three result was the first podium finish for Lamborghini in its inaugural season of competition in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship’s highly-competitive GT Daytona (GTD) class.
“It’s amazing what a podium does for everybody’s morale,” said Sellers, who drove the second half of the two-hour and 40-minute race. “It kind of gets you moving back in the right direction. You get to taste the champagne, you get to stand next to the winners and realize that’s where you want to be the next time around. It’s just perfect timing.”
Paul Miller Racing came to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, formerly known as “Mosport,” after a pair of encouraging performances in the two most recent GTD races at Detroit in June and last weekend at Watkins Glen.
All that was missing for success in those two events – Sellers led 15 laps from the pole at Detroit and Snow raced as high as third at The Glen – was a little bit of good luck.
The No. 48 team and drivers found some good luck Sunday and even created a little good fortune of their own with an early decision to do a three-pit-stop race.
Snow steadily worked his way up the order from ninth at the start and made it to as high as second in his double-stint in the Lamborghini in the first half of the race.
A well-timed yellow flag at the race’s halfway point let the team put Sellers in the Lamborghini under caution. The No. 48 returned to the race in sixth and Sellers went to work on improving as many positions as he could in the final 80 minutes.
“We have had a little bit of bad luck along the way this season, and today we had a good result and a little bit of good luck along the way,” Sellers said. “That’s what you need. You have to have a good race car, you have to have good execution, and you have to have good luck to finish on the podium at these races.”
Sellers soon moved into the top five and then up to fourth as other race leaders pit or encountered issues. He reached the top three with a convincing pass of the championship-leading Ferrari in Mosport’s Turn 5 section.
“I took a pretty big risk on the pass of the Ferrari, it worked out, but once you get into a podium position you have to be smart,” Sellers said. “Making a little bit of a mistake going for a podium is much different than making a mistake that takes you off of a podium.”
Sellers was able to close on the eventual race-winning and second-place competitors but never had a chance to make a pass to move deeper into the top three.
“I definitely had something for them,” Sellers said. “The car was quick enough. If we could get in front of them, it would have been a different story, but it is very difficult to pass at Mosport.”
Paul Miller Racing’s Mosport podium came at the exact mid-season point of the 11-race IMSA GTD season, which now moves into its final five races.
“It’s just nice to have a podium now,” Snow said. “We have had the pace for a while now, we just needed to get the strategy all together and the yellows timed at the right spot. Just needed to get everything on the same page and this was our weekend. It’s a great way to go into the next few races.”
Next up for Paul Miller Racing and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is the Northeast Grand Prix at Lime Rock Park in Connecticut, July 22 – 23. The race can be seen live on FOX, Saturday, July 23, at 3 p.m. EDT.
Noteworthy
– In addition to today’s third-place race finish, the Paul Miller Racing No. 48 was third in Saturday morning practice and second in both Friday’s first practice and this morning’s warm-up.
Follow Paul Miller Racing at www.PaulMillerRacing.com, on Twitter @PaulMilleracing and at the Official Team Page on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/PaulMillerRacing.
