Rockenfeller: JDC-Miller Can Be “Quite Proud” Despite Struggles

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Mike Rockenfeller said JDC-Miller Motorsports can be “quite proud” of its result in last weekend’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, despite struggling for pace and encountering several gremlins with its customer Porsche 963.

The No. 5 Porsche of Rockenfeller and co-driver Tijmen van der Helm took the checkered flag in fifth overall, two laps behind the winners, and was later promoted to fourth following the post-race penalty for the initial race-winning No. 6 Penske Porsche.

While marking a significant improvement over its seventh place finish in the team’s debut with the car last month at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, Rockenfeller admitted there’s still work to be done to get the car into a competitive window.

“We were not quick, that’s for sure,” he told Sportscar365 post-race. “We struggled a lot.

“We have to look into a few areas. One is setup, balance. We need to have more time because we don’t go testing, and it’s hard without any comparison to know where we are and what the car needs.

“Mosport is going to be tough as well. I will be in the simulator tomorrow and Tuesday, at Multimatic in Detroit, so hopefully that will help us a lot. Still, on track testing will be crucial.

“I believe that we will go to Indy after Mosport, so that will help. But still, we are a small team against the factories.

“To be P5 [P4 after post-race penalty] is fine, but we all know why: We didn’t do it on our own pace. But, it’s endurance racing.

“Some people didn’t manage to do the first corner. We have to take advantage of that.”

He added: “In terms of pure performance, I’m not obviously happy. I feel that in performance of the car, we were closer in Laguna than we were here. But as a team, we were better here because it feels like we understood a few more things.

“Even though we have a few more mysteries. But we are looking into that with Multimatic and Porsche. I’m sure we make a step next time.

“We [don’t] have a lot of spare parts, so we need to do risk management and keep it out there. If we crash, it hurts us way more than the others, in many areas: budget, losing track time and spares.”

The German driver revealed that he and van der Helm were battling through various issues during the race.

“We had no air con, no radio,” Rockenfeller said. “Something broke there. The radio did work at the beginning, but I would say that after two hours it broke. The steering wheel started to flicker a lot and we had a lot of vibrations.

“I don’t know why, but I heard that everybody did struggle with vibrations.”

Rockenfeller, however, said there were positives to take away from the weekend, especially as the John Church-led squad managed to get to the finish without any serious setbacks.

“It’s already something,” he said. “I don’t think everybody else was doing that all the time. We will have issues and the car is super complex, but yes, it is something.

“It’s a small team against all factories, so I think they can be quite proud.”

Daniel Lloyd contributed to this report

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