Connor De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen came to Road Atlanta 47 points behind in the GTD PRO standings and left as IMSA champions. Their third-place class finish in the #1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO at Petit Le Mans was enough, and Paul Miller Racing now holds its first full-season IMSA title since moving up from the GTD class three years ago.
The championship run began in January. De Phillippi and Verhagen opened the season with a GTD PRO victory at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, built points through the summer, and held on through a stretch where championship rivals Turner Motorsport were applying real pressure. At Road Atlanta, that pressure came off: Turner’s #96 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, which arrived with a genuine shot at the GTD class title for Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher, was retired by an early technical failure. The race handed Paul Miller Racing its window and they drove through it cleanly. Dan Harper shared the cockpit for the endurance stint; the podium finish did the rest.
Verhagen’s post-race quote said everything about the margin they were working with heading into the finale: “We came here 47 points behind and knew we’d need a little miracle to win the title — and we did it.” De Phillippi called it one of the greatest achievements of his career, which, given a résumé that includes a Rolex 24 class win, is not a throwaway line.
The GTP story at Road Atlanta was close in a different way. Dries Vanthoor, Sheldon van der Linde, and Robin Frijns started the ten-hour race from third in the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8, worked their way into the leading group, and were still fighting for the win in the final laps. Van der Linde went wheel-to-wheel with Laurens Vanthoor’s Porsche but could not make the decisive pass. Second place it was.
The near-miss stings because of the season’s arc. Brake failure ended a race-leading run at Road America, a loss that cost BMW M Team WRT what looked like a certain win. The team then got its first IMSA victory at Indianapolis, Vanthoor and van der Linde finally converting the pace the car had shown all year. Road Atlanta was another chance to win a marquee race on the calendar, and it slipped by one position. Dries Vanthoor acknowledged he was annoyed, then congratulated his brother Laurens on the win.
The #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 had a worse afternoon. Philipp Eng, Marco Wittmann, and Kevin Magnussen were running competitively before an accident ended their day. Magnussen walked away uninjured. Team principal Vincent Vosse noted the car had been on course for a strong result before contact, which made the retirement harder to absorb.
Taken across the full season, BMW M Team WRT’s debut in the IMSA Series reads as a genuine first year rather than a promotional exercise. One outright win at Indianapolis, second places at Road Atlanta and Detroit, third places at Daytona and Laguna Seca — five podiums in a championship the team was competing in for the first time, having taken over the GTP program after Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s 17-year run with BMW ended following 2025. A four-race podium streak through midsummer showed the car’s baseline competitiveness; the Road America retirement and a few mechanical inconsistencies showed what still needs sorting.
Team principal Vosse framed next season’s task plainly: the goal is to replicate what the team showed in Indianapolis and at Petit Le Mans across every round, not just the ones where everything clicks. That is a reasonable diagnosis. The BMW M Hybrid V8 has demonstrated it can win. The 2026 season’s remaining question is whether it can do so consistently enough to challenge for the GTP title, not just for individual races.
Paul Miller Racing and Connor De Phillippi won’t have that problem to worry about. They already have the trophy.
Source: BMW. Images courtesy of BMW.
