
Photo: BMW
Dan Harper and Max Hesse described their move up to full-time IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competition as an “exciting step” forming part of Paul Miller Racing’s two-car GTD Pro effort.
The two former Junior Team members turned fully fledged BMW factory drivers will share the No. 48 BMW M4 GT3 EVO for the full season, while the sister No. 1 machine is driven by Neil Verhagen and Madison Snow.
While Verhagen was also part of the Junior Team, his focus was increasingly shifted towards the U.S. while Harper and Hesse continued to compete together in the Intercontinental GT Challenge and GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS.
“Obviously, it’s an exciting step for us,” Harper told Sportscar365. “Since 2020 now we’ve been racing together, so this is year six, which is crazy to be honest.
“It’s flown by but we’ve had a lot of success, a lot of fun memories to look back on.
“Now recently the 24H Dubai, [our] first overall 24-hour victory so that was a nice way to start the year.
“We’ve been racing now in GT3 and GT World Challenge the last three years.
“We’ve been always quick and competitive but apart from our win in Paul Ricard last year, we haven’t really had much luck.
“We’ve got a new opportunity here in America, a new team with Paul Miller and I think we’ve got a strong lineup, strong team behind us. I think it’s going to be a fun year.”
Hesse credited BMW management, including motorsport boss Andreas Roos, for the trust in giving them the seats over other factory drivers with more WeatherTech Championship experience.
“For us, obviously it’s a nice step and I think it will be a challenge, but we’re really excited for it,” said Hesse.
“It’s something also to be proud of, no? Because as Dan mentioned, this is year six, but we didn’t start off like this.
“We started with the M240i on the Nordschleife. It’s also cool to have Neil full time with us, with the experience we have with him.
“So obviously he’s on the sister car, but in the end we’re one family. So yeah, I think it’s going to be a really nice year.”
Harper and Hesse have largely focused on longer-distance events since they were picked up by BMW, contesting five editions of the Nürburgring 24 and three runnings of CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa as a pairing.
While Harper separately has achieved notable success in sprint racing, taking titles in GTWC Europe Sprint Cup and the British GT Championship, the Northern Irishman noted that it will be the first time he and Hesse have done shorter races in the same car.
“We haven’t done that together but I guess whenever we’re going through our junior career, it’s always sprint racing,” he said.
“As though we haven’t done it much together, I think we both know what to do.
“I think whenever we’re in a race car, there’s only one mode and it’s maximum send. I think we’ll do fine.
“Of course we’ll need to learn how IMSA works. It’s always a different way of racing with a safety car every time that we’re not used to. There’s no full course yellow.
“So there’s a lot of differences. But I think the combination of the team’s experience and then us doing our own job, then I think it’ll be good.”
