MONTEREY, California (MAY 13, 2025) – Round 3 of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at Laguna Seca brought highs, lows, and hard-earned points for Paul Miller Racing, as both GTD Pro entries pushed through challenges to stay firmly in the title hunt.
The No. 48 BMW M4 GT3, driven by Dan Harper and Max Hesse, showed strong pace all weekend and qualified on the front row in P2.
Harper started the race and maintained position early on, but a penalty for a mistake at the restart forced the team to serve a drive-through, setting them back in the opening phase.
Hesse took over in the second stint and mounted an impressive recovery drive to bring the car home in P5. Hesse also clocked the car’s fastest lap during the race with a 1:22.211.
“Overall, I think a bit of a frustrating race,” said Harper.
“Unfortunately, my mistake at the start of the race, caused us a possible podium. Apologies to the team for that one, but we move on. We did a good job to recover to P5 in the end and score some crucial points for the championship.
“Also, the strong qualifying obviously gave us some more points. Overall, on a track that I think the BMW hasn’t been the strongest in the past, I think we could be happy with the performance we achieved.”
“It has been a very smooth weekend, to be honest,” added Hesse
“So it was really nice for a sprint weekend together. Obviously, the drive-through in the race may have cost us a chance at the podium, but overall, we’ve still done a very good job, so I’m very pleased with that. The car was quick, so really looking forward now to Detroit.
“Hopefully, making a very clean and smooth race weekend there. I think we’re waiting for a lot of chaos, as it’s a street track with the hypercars together and a very tight GTD Pro here, to be honest.
“The competition is really strong, so getting ready for that race now, but overall, happy with how we have performed over there in Laguna now and looking forward to Detroit already.”
The No. 1 BMW M4 GT3, driven by Madison Snow and Neil Verhagen, had a more tactical Sunday. Snow started the race from P10 and handed off to Verhagen mid-race as the team gambled on strategy, hoping for a full-course yellow that never came.
Verhagen kept the car clean and consistent to finish where it started—in P10—and logged the car’s fastest lap with a 1:22.580.
“A weekend of ups and downs for us,” said Verhagen.
“I think for us, we started off a bit on the back foot. We never really got into the right window, and I think that compromised the qualifying pace a little bit.
“And from there, we were just then looking to try and maximize the most we could in the race. We took a gamble. We obviously never got that yellow, which we needed for the gamble to work.
“And then we continued to look for that yellow through the whole race and inevitably just did more and more damage to our race.
“A bit unfortunate that that never happened. I’m not sure, but it may be the first IMSA race with no yellows in it. Anyway, looking forward to the next ones. Hopefully, we can make a bounce back and get a better result.”
“It was a rough weekend for us,” said Snow. “Not the result we wanted, nor the one the team deserved. we will certainly learn from this weekend so we can be better in the next one.”
After three races, both Paul Miller Racing entries now share P5 in the GTD Pro standings, each with 860 points—just 154 points off the lead held by AO Racing. With seven races still to go, the team remains optimistic and determined.
Next up is the Detroit Grand Prix, May 30–31, on the narrow and unpredictable Detroit Street Circuit. It’s a 100-minute sprint that promises tight racing, high stakes, and zero room for error.
