Christopher Haase Press Release
The Raceway at Belle Isle Park in Detroit was last weekend’s venue for Christpher Haase‘s next motor racing
assignment in North America. As soon as the young German and his team Bryce Miller went into free practice on the temporary race course with its many bumps and potholes, they found that much setup work on the Audi R8 LMS lay ahead of them: „We had to make several changes to the settings in both free practice sessions. In the end, it went quite well; but we weren’t able to carry that performance over into qualifying.“
The end of qualifying practice saw them only in 12th place of the GTD category, not a particularly good starting point for the Paul Miller Racing crew. The team made a few setup adjustments during the warm-up session, with the desired result: „These minute changes had a very positive effect“, says Christopher Haase who watched his colleague Miller take the start, „we got away without trouble, and the new setup allowed us to get on the pace of the leading cars in terms of our lap times.“
Just as at Laguna Seca, the team’s brilliant strategy and a fantastic recovery drive by Haase cleared the way onto the class podium, where the man from Bavaria was jubilant. “Just 35 minutes into the race, we had the first Safety Car period which we used for a pit stop for fresh tyres, refuelling and driver change. The boys at Paul Miller Racing did perfect and super fast work, which gained us a few positions right there in the pits. And at the restart, I got the crucial information over the radio at just the right time, so I got past a few competitors right when the lights turned from yellow to green. Things got extremely exciting toward the end when I was in touch with the leading group. It was close combat for 30 minutes, bumper-to-bumper on the streets of Detroit where you tend to lean on the retaining walls under acceleration... When we consider our position on the starting grid, this 3rd place is the maximum of what we could achieve, there was nothing more in it. Our Audi once again ran without any problem, so a victory should only be a matter of time! Right now I am looking forward to the highlight of my season, because my next race will be the 24 Hours on the Nürburgring!“
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Photo credit: Paul Miller Racing / Bob Chapman Photography
