Paul Miller Racing finished the Rolex 24 At Daytona on a strong note, despite a challenging debut for the team’s No. 48 Castrol/UIS Lamborghini Huracán GT3. The team led the GTD class for most of the first 10 hours of the 24-hour race before trouble struck. After a hit from another car, Bryce Miller (Summit, N.J.) was forced to the garage for a long pitstop while the crew replaced the car’s rear suspension, left-front toe link and rear bodywork. A later radiator replacement caused a further delay.

Back on track, Miller and his co-drivers Mirko Bortolotti (Italy), Bryan Sellers (Atlanta) and Madison Snow (Lehi, Utah) worked steadily through the field, regaining five positions to finish 16^th. The drivers said the race car prepared by the Paul Miller Racing crew was much better than the results indicate.

“The team and Lamborghini did a fantastic job,” Miller said. “They deserve a result commensurate with the car they gave us. While that didn’t happen because of the on-track incident, I am really proud of their performance. They performed like winners.”

“We were not able to finish where we wanted to, but the crew performed flawlessly and we showed the pace,” Snow agreed. “We had everything going for us, but being such a long race, there is a lot of luck involved and that was one thing that we lacked, if just for a moment. We have the rest of the year to get the car even better than it was this time.”

“Before the race I used one word to describe it: elusive. After the race, I would say the same thing,” Sellers said. “We had great speed, all the drivers did a great job, the [pit]stops were clean. In the end, we were caught in an unfortunate incident that eliminated us from contention. I think we were able to learn a lot and need to take those things and apply them to the rest of the season.”

Bortolotti added, “I really enjoyed working with Paul Miller Racing and I’d like to thank my co-drivers, the engineers and the entire crew for a great job. We led for a long time and I believe we had a good chance to win this race without the incident. It’s very unfortunate that some drivers out there approached a 24-hour endurance race like a one-hour sprint race.”

Paul Miller Racing is a leading GTD team in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The team placed second in the 2014 IMSA series GTD standings and third in 2015.