Mike Rockenfeller and Tijmen van der Helm will drive JDC Miller Motorsports’ striking yellow and black Porsche 963 in the GTP class of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportswear Championship for the remainder of this season.
The team recently received their 963 chassis from Porsche, after a roll out at Weissach, Porsche’s HQ in Germany.
The car is adorned in a yellow and black livery, with a white stripe down the middle. The team will make its debut in GTP at Laguna Seca in just over two weeks time.
Driving the car will be Rockenfeller and van der Helm. The former is a sportscar veteran, having won Le Mans in 2010 with Audi alongside Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard and the DTM championship in 2013, also for Audi. He’ll additionally race at Le Mans this year in the Garage 56 NASCAR Chevrolet Camaro Z1, with teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jenson Button.
Van der Helm, meanwhile, is at the other end of the motorsport career spectrum, at just 19 years old. He made his endurance racing debut last year with G-Drive and APR, before competing in the World Endurance Championship with ARC Bratislava. The Dutchman will dovetail his IMSA campaign with a drive in the European Le Mans Series for Panis Racing in LMP2.
He also raced for JDC Miller at Daytona and Sebring in the LMP3 class.
Rockenfeller said: “I am excited to be part of this team and the Porsche 963 project! Starting our GTP season at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca for the fourth round of the season is going to be a challenge.
“I am confident the JDC-Miller MotorSports team is on a very steep learning curve and will compete with the GTP teams very quickly. So very happy to see my name back on a Porsche.”
van der Helm, meanwhile, is excited for the challenge ahead. “I am really happy to be a part of JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 LMDh project. To me it does not really matter that we start a bit later in the season,” he said
“I think we as a team can maximize every opportunity we will get. Going to the Laguna race with a brand-new car will be tough, but I have no doubt that we will be competitive as a team. I look forward to the challenge and opportunity!”
