Regulator Racing and Team Drivers Jeff Burton and Philip Ellis Stay in GT World Challenge America Pro-Am Championship Contention with Second-Place Finishes at Sebring
Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Teams Regulator Racing and JMF Motorsports Combine for a Trio of Podium Finishes in GT World Challenge America Competition at Sebring International Raceway
Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing teams Regulator Racing and JMF Motorsports combined for a trio of podium finishes in a hot and hard-fought weekend of SRO GT World Challenge America powered by AWS competition Saturday and Sunday at Sebring International Raceway. Jeff Burton and Philip Ellis co-drove the No. 91 Regulator Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 to second-place Pro-Am class finishes each day while Mikael Grenier and Michai Stephens finished third on Sunday in the Pro division in the No. 34 JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3. Regulator’s results keep the No. 91 team and drivers in close contention for the GT World Challenge Pro-Am season championship, provisionally trailing the class leaders by just 10 points after Sebring.
Calling on its trademark reverse strategy, Burton – the team’s sportsman “Am” driver – capably held his own as the closer in Saturday’s opening 90-minute race against a field of primarily top professional sports car racing drivers. Taking over the No. 91 from Ellis in the lead, Burton held off all but one challenger to secure the runner-up showing, the highest finish to date in a race Ellis starts and Burton finishes.
Burton started Sunday’s final race and shook off an early spin on the hot and slippery track to hand the No. 91 over to Ellis for the charge to the finish. Track position, the heat and the ever-changing track conditions made this race’s run to the front tougher than usual for Ellis, but he and the Regulator team got the break they needed when a late field-tightening yellow saw the race restarted with 15 minutes to go.
Ellis went on an immediate charge, passing more than half of the overall field, including six Pro-Am competitors, to zero in on the leader in the closing laps. Ellis took the white flag with the leader in reach but ultimately ran out of time before he could mount a proper pass for the win, taking the checkered a scant 0.417 of a second shy of the win in second place.
Stephens and Grenier shook off a podium near-miss in Saturday’s race to fight to the third-place Pro division finish on Sunday. Like Regulator in the Pro-Am division, the JMF team and drivers are in the thick of the Pro class championship battle after podium finishes in five of the year’s first six races, including two wins.
In the Sebring weekend’s Pirelli GT4 America doubleheader, first-year team Dome Motorsport stepped up for its best finish to date in Saturday’s first 60-minute race. Co-drivers Eddie Killeen and Marc Miller put in a solid run to seventh place in the No. 37 Dome Motorsport in just the team’s fourth race together.
An even better result appeared to be in the cards in Sunday’s final sprint, but an untimely full-course caution period just as Miller cycled into the lead during pit stops killed the team’s strategy. Killeen took over from Miller for the run to the checkered flag and secured a ninth-place finish.
The 2025 SRO America racing season now enters its traditional summer break with competition resuming two months from now at VIRginia International Raceway (VIR), July 18 – 20.
Jeff Burton, Driver – No. 91 Regulator Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: “Saturday was probably my best drive, not the fastest I’ve driven, but it was the best drive for me here at Sebring. Bottom line, I got to do my part. The Mercedes-AMG was really good, as bad as the track was. It was just slippery, with rubber and other stuff on that track, and it’s pretty hard going from understeer to oversteer constantly from turn to turn. The end of Sunday’s race was really fun. Watching Philip do what he does is really enjoyable but putting him in that position was really hard for me. I had kind of a grip issue for my whole stint, and that set us back instead of me moving forward, but Philip is amazing. It is always go for us, go for it all of the time. We just go after it hard. That’s our strategy. I think about winning the race and the championship every time I am in the car.”
Philip Ellis, Driver – No. 91 Regulator Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3: “I think we had a good race both days and a good weekend. We were a bit lucky with the safety car on Sunday, maybe a little unlucky that it came out so late, so we didn’t have that last final lap to get to first, but all in all, lots of good from the weekend. Very good. In our two years with this strategy, this has been our best first race result on a Saturday so far. It was tough, with the heat and keeping the tires underneath us, but everybody was struggling with the same thing. It’s kind of down to the drivers to manage it, but we always have a good general platform with the Mercedes-AMG, and that’s what we’re trying to use to our advantage more.”
Michai Stephens, Driver – No. 34 JMF Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3: “We were just managing the evolving balance of the car for the heat and the rubber buildup. The track was almost as if you were on a downhill ski course. There was pretty much one line, and if you tried to open up some more it would bite you. I’m just exceptionally proud of the organization at large, and this experience will better us for the future. It’s weekends such as these that we reflect on. Most importantly, we can’t control the timeline, or those things out of our reach, only those that we learn from along the way. We walked away with many lessons learned. For me personally, and JMF Motorsports as well, we are just absolutely in it to win it. That’s what makes this whole endeavor so beautiful.”
Marc Miller, Driver – No. 37 Dome Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT4: “Saturday really showed how good the car was at the end of the race. Only a couple of cars were that fast at the end, so that was great. The team got our Mercedes-AMG sorted really quickly. On Sunday we got to the lead during the pit cycle, but you live or die by the yellow flag timing. It just didn’t work out in our favor, but the car was great. This has just been a great experience as far as building a team, working with Eddie and everyone on the team. The first order of business for this year was to create a good cohesive team and then have the right tools to put together to make it all work. With the Mercedes-AMG GT4 we obviously have the right tool. We didn’t have a lot of time to test and develop and get used to the car before the season, but we did do a test before COTA. We all work well together, and Eddie is continually improving. Our pace was good, and our racing was good at Sebring, but some of the driver courtesies weren’t how they should have been, but we soldiered through it.”