BRASELTON, Georgia (October 1, 2015) – Defending Petit Le Mans winners Paul Miller Racing will be looking to ride a repeat victory in the team’s No. 48 Castrol EDGE Paul Miller Racing Audi R8 LMS straight to the 2015 IMSA TUDOR United SportsCar Championship GT Daytona (GTD) title Saturday in the season-ending race at Road Atlanta.
Full-season team drivers Christopher Haase and Dion von Moltke will be joined by endurance-race specialist Bryce Miller in the 10-hour race that is scheduled to start at 11:15 a.m. EDT. The race can be seen live on FOX Sports 2 this Saturday, October 3, in three different segments.
The opening hour of FOX Sports 2 coverage begins at 11 a.m. EDT and picks up again at 2:30 p.m. EDT until 7 p.m. EDT. The race finish will be the highlight of the final hour of coverage at 8:30 p.m. EDT. The entire race will also be streamed live on IMSA.com.
“I always like major endurance races, and to have one at the end of the season is pretty cool,” Haase said. “Especially in GT racing it is a great pleasant change to change between sprint and endurance races. Petit Le Mans is unique, racing into the night with great fans all around the track and Road Atlanta is an awesome circuit. It’s a big challenge for team, drivers and car.”
Haase and Bryce Miller were two of the three co-drivers in last year’s winning effort at Petit Le Mans. Von Moltke, who took over for Bryce Miller as Haase’s full-season co-driver this year, will be making his first Petit Le Mans start with Paul Miller Racing this weekend.
“I absolutely love Petit, it really is my favorite event,” von Moltke said. “Road Atlanta is my favorite track in the U.S. and the fans at Petit are truly special, they are what makes this a really fantastic event. The fact that we end the season with a major endurance race is great, it is the essence of our sport and the best way to close another great year of racing!”
Bryce Miller, who now focuses only on endurance races, will be making his fourth race start of the year in the Castrol EDGE Audi R8 LMS. He last raced in June’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen where he helped Haase, von Moltke and the No. 48 team earn a third-place finish.
“I’ve gone completely ‘lapless’ all the way from Watkins Glen to here but it came back pretty quickly,” Bryce Miller said. “I’m feeling pretty good here. This is a good track for me to shake off some of the rust and the cobwebs because this is our home track. I’ve turned a lot of laps here so if there was one place to come and do it, this would probably be it. That’s helpful, gives me some added confidence under the circumstances, and it’s just a great feeling to finally be back in the car, I’m enjoying it.”
The Paul Miller Racing race shop is in the greater Atlanta area while the team’s corporate headquarters are based within the Paul Miller Auto Group in Parsippany, New Jersey. Bryce Miller cut back on his racing to focus on a fulltime management position within the dealership group.
“The change of pace from the work environment to get out and really have some fun with the team and the guys, and enjoy being back in the car and just forgetting about everything else, is really a lot of fun,” Miller said.
Paul Miller Racing and its drivers led the GTD championship standings for the majority of the season after a consistent run of finishes that produced four podiums and six total top-five finishes in the nine races run to date.
The No. 48 Paul Miller Racing team, and Haase and von Moltke, come to Petit Le Mans with 255 points in both the GTD team and driver championship standings, just one point out of the lead in both battles.
A repeat win for Paul Miller Racing on Saturday would clinch the 2015 IMSA TUDOR GTD Championship for the Haase, von Moltke and the team and be the No. 48 squad’s first victory of the 2015 season.
“We have a great team and they always do a great job,” Haase said. “No point to change something for this race. They know that they can win if everything plays out for us during the race. We just need to do our part with consistent lap times and staying out of trouble.”
Von Moltke already has a 2015 season-award honor to his credit. He and the No. 48 team clinched the TOTAL Pole Award when they won a GTD class-leading fourth pole of the year one race ago at Circuit of The Americas.
“We are excited to just have the opportunity to fight for the championship,” von Moltke said. “It’s really a big testament to the team and their consistency throughout the whole year. For us as drivers, we just need to focus as always on one corner at a time and maximizing what we can do in the car. It sometimes is tough to do, but having that mental focus will be vital.”
Petit Le Mans began today with three practice sessions, including a pair of rain-plagued sessions Thursday afternoon and that evening’s night practice.
Qualifying for the GTD division is set for 3:35 EDT on Friday with live streaming available on IMSA.com. Race-day Saturday begins with a 25-minute warm-up at 9 a.m. EDT before the start of Petit Le Mans at 11:15 a.m. EDT.
Petit Le Mans will be rebroadcast as part of a three-hour highlight package at 1:30 p.m. EDT this Sunday on FOX Sports 1. Live timing and scoring during all on-track sessions is available at IMSA.com and the IMSA smartphone app.
About Audi of America and the Audi R8 LMS: Audi began a new chapter in 2009 with the introduction of the Audi Sport customer racing program. For the first time it was possible for motorsport customers to acquire a race car designed for customer racing events. Since its inception, the success of the R8 LMS has been significant throughout the GT3 racing format worldwide, including victory in the GT class in the 2013 edition of the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The Audi R8 LMS shares more than 50% of its parts with the Audi R8 street car including the naturally aspirated V10 5.2 Liter engine, the Audi Space Frame and a variety of other components.
Audi of America, Inc. and its U.S. dealers offer a full line of German-engineered luxury vehicles. AUDI AG is among the most successful luxury automotive brands globally. Audi was a top-performing luxury brand in Europe during 2012, and broke all-time company sales records in the U.S. Through 2016, AUDI AG will invest about $17 billion on new products and technologies.
Visit www.audiusa.com or www.audiusanews.com for more information regarding Audi vehicle and business issues.
