Paul Miller’s Single BMW Entry a “Melding” of Two 2025 Teams

Photo: Brandon Badraoui/IMSA

Paul Miller Racing’s single-car BMW M4 GT3 EVO effort this year is a “melding” of its two-car split-team approach from the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season according to team principal Mitchell Simmons.

The Georgia-based squad expanded to a pair GTD Pro entries in 2025, with its longtime staff operating the No. 1 car of Madison Snow and Neil Verhagen, and a largely fly-in crew from Germany-based RH Race Engineering, led by Raphael Hess, for its No. 48 BMW of Max Hesse and Dan Harper.

Now back to a single car, the No. 1 entry, driven for the full season by Verhagen and Connor De Philippi, features largely RH Engineering staff, with Hess serving as the race engineer and splitting race strategy with Simmons.

Previously, Simmons shared race strategy with renowned race engineer Lars Giersing, who, among several other long-standing employees, are no longer with the team.

“Obviously this year we’ve gone to a single-car team,” Simmons told Sportscar365. “We looked at the economics of both, of having our full-time guys vs. have the fly-in guys and it just made more economic sense to keep the fly-ins.

“The decision was made to go that route.

“We kept some of the full-time crew guys that are based in Buford (Ga.) as well as most of the fly-ins that we had from the 48 car. They came back for the 1 car.

“It was a melding of the two.”

Simmons admitted the scaling back to one car will largely have disadvantages rather than advantages, but bringing other cost efficiencies, especially considering the team has remained with the same GT3 machinery for the 2026 season.

“I don’t know there’s any benefits of having one car,” he said. “I think obviously from a racing perspective, having two cars is beneficial.

“Obviously the cost involved is substantially less for one car.

“For this year, it will be substantially cheaper since we are coming from a two-car team and had all the parts for two cars.

“That allows us to capitalize on all the parts we had from last year. Our parts costs go down dramatically. That’s a positive.”

The reason for the scaled-back effort, and leaning on German-based crew, is largely down to economics, said Simmons.

“With Paul [Miller] being in the auto industry with all the tariffs and all the unknowns and everything, not that it’s really hit so far yet, but the writing is on the wall,” he said.

“Any good businessperson knows that if you’re reacting, you’re already behind the eight-ball.

“I think Paul, very intelligently, saw the writing on the wall and said, ‘I need to make sure I protect myself.’ That’s his business and that’s his legacy.

“I think he probably made the right move.”

When asked about their prospects this season, which will see De Philippi make his full-time WeatherTech Championship return since 2024 when he was part of BMW M Team RLL’s GTP effort, Simmons said he’s hopeful of leading the team back to a season-long title.

The team finished 1-2 in last year’s Michelin Endurance Cup standings in GTD Pro but hasn’t won a season-long title since 2023, when Snow and Bryan Sellers delivered a dominant year in GTD with five wins out of 11 races.

“We know Connor really well and Connor ran a lot with us last year,” said Simmons. “He’s a natural fit for the team so that wasn’t an issue at all.

“He and Neil, they live in the same city. They work out together; they know each other very well. Their personal relationship carries all the way into our program.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John