“A bit cherry on a giant cake.” That is how Dries Vanthoor described his pole place for the Daytona 24 Hours this weekend. The BMW driver identified after he’d secured a primary prime spot in qualifying for BMW’s M Hybrid V8 LMDh that there is “nonetheless a giant factor to occur”. And he was speaking in regards to the race.
The true significance of Vanthoor’s pole lap wasn’t that it has put him on the entrance of the sphere for the beginning of the opening spherical of the 2025 IMSA SportsCar Championship, however that it supplied the ultimate proof that the M Hybrid V8 is there on outright tempo.
It backed up a formidable begin to BMW’s third North American marketing campaign with the LMDh it has developed along with Dallara: the automotive topped 4 of the six classes within the pre-event Roar take a look at final weekend, was then quickest qualifying on Thursday and in among the many prime three within the occasions in two of the trio of free follow classes.
BMW has been the underachiever of the brand new GTP period in IMSA that began in 2023, however a few wins. Victory within the Watkins Glen 6 Hours in June ’23 was inherited on the disqualification of the Porsche that crossed the road in first place and the 1-2 for the Rahal staff final September on the Indianapolis owed rather a lot to the moist circumstances and the power of the automobiles to stretch its vitality allocation.
That is the distinction this time round. The M Hybrid is bang on the tempo, primary forward of Acura, Porsche and Cadillac within the pecking order of the GTP full-timers. (The opposite massive underachiever, Lamborghini, is barely scheduled to contest the 5 long-distance rounds this yr.)
BMW has at all times been eager to level out {that a} late choice to return to the top of sportscar racing with what turned the M Hybrid was made late – in June of 2022, to be actual, which explains why it opted to hitch IMSA first in ’23 and solely broaden into the World Endurance Championship in season two final yr. A double programme straight out of the field would have been overambitious.
“Clearly once we began the programme we have been late with the choice and we have been at all times catching up,” says head of BMW M Motorsport Andreas Roos. “From the center of final yr, we noticed some nice improvement when it comes to our efficiency.
#24 BMW M Group RLL BMW M Hybrid V8: Philipp Eng, Dries Vanthoor, Kevin Magnussen, Raffaele Marciello
Picture by: Bob Meyer
“We have been getting there, Dries with the quickest lap in [first] qualifying on the Le Mans 24 Hours earlier than Hyperpole, but additionally the 1-2 at Indianapolis and the rostrum within the WEC at Fuji. We have been getting increasingly more out of the automotive and utilizing the potential of the automotive. This appeared promising for us and we knew we nonetheless had fairly some issues to tweak on the automotive to make it higher.”
That included invoking one of many evo joker efficiency upgrades allowed to producers beneath the LMDh guidelines. For this season there’s a brake system replace, which, insists Roos, is aimed much less at outright efficiency and extra at “consistency and driveability”.
There has additionally been a change in the best way BMW goes about its racing with the M Hybrid. Porsche and Penske have made a lot of what it calls its “one staff” method straddling the WEC and IMSA – it insists it was central to its ultra-successful season with the 963 LMDh in 2024 that yielded the drivers’ title in each sequence in addition to a victory at Daytona 12 months in the past.
BMW runs with Rahal, BMW M Group RLL to provide it its official identify, in IMSA and the Belgian WRT squad in WEC. However for this yr there’s a larger cross-pollination throughout the 2 sequence. Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde, regulars with WRT final yr, are additionally contesting the total IMSA marketing campaign with Rahal. It is a transfer geared toward driving on improvement of the M Hybrid V8 at a larger price.
“Clearly it’s paying off,” says Roos. “It helps with the interchange [of information] on the engineering facet. Having drivers doing each sequence will assist us to speed up the programme by sharing the knowledge. It makes it extra of an open e book. It’s a win-win state of affairs as a result of the drivers additionally get extra seat time, which is at all times useful.”
BMW’s first appointment within the WEC this yr can be in Qatar for the 10-hour fixture that opens proceedings within the Center East on the finish of subsequent month. Enhancing on that second place notched up by Vanthoor, Marciello and Marco Wittmann over six hours at Fuji final September is “clearly the objective”, says Roos.
BMW’s stand up the sphere over the second half of the 2024 WEC was aided by a little bit of assist from the Stability of Efficiency. Sequence rulemakers the Vehicle Membership de l’Ouest and the FIA clearly said that they’d edge up newcomers over the course of the season. Alpine, which pipped BMW to fourth spot within the producers’ standings, benefitted from the identical philosophy.
#24 BMW M Group RLL BMW M Hybrid V8: Philipp Eng, Dries Vanthoor, Kevin Magnussen, Raffaele Marciello
Picture by: IMSA
There’s additionally some assist this weekend for BMW beneath the IMSA BoP. The M Hybrid is racing on the minimal weight of 1030kg and the utmost energy of 520kW or 698bhp allowed in GTP. However decoding the BoP is extra sophisticated than prior to now.
There may be additionally a brand new aspect to the BoP in IMSA at Daytona, which mimics the ‘powergain’ launched in WEC at Le Mans final yr. The automobiles are given a plus or minus determine above a sure pace in a transfer designed to steadiness the straightline efficiency of the automobiles. In WEC powergain kicks in at 250km/h (155mph), whereas in IMSA there’s a linear phase-in between 230 and 240km/h (142 and 149mph).
BMW has been given a determine for the race of minus 0.6%, whereas Porsche’s 963 LMDh loses 3.8% and the Acura ARX-06 3.5%. Cadillac’s V-Sequence.R features 2.4% energy above the magic 240km/h determine, however it’s racing down at 500kW (670bhp) and weighs in 30kg greater than the BMW.
BMW has clearly made itself favorite going into the Rolex 24 on Saturday, but when it has to have its cake and eat it then it must be fast on the sharp finish of the race. Daytona is historically received within the ultimate hours, probably after a late security automotive that regroups the sphere and units up a dramatic sprint to the flag.
Kevin Magnussen, again in sportscar racing with BMW after what he guarantees actually is the top of his Components 1 profession, is aware of the significance of preserving the automotive in fine condition via the period. It is easy to overlook that the Dane has raced on this occasion twice prior to now, the primary time in 2021 as a part of a full IMSA marketing campaign with the Ganassi Cadillac squad and the second on a one-off with the identical staff the next yr. He had joined Peugeot for its 2022 WEC entry, solely to ship out of the programme to return to F1 when a possibility arose again at Haas.
“It’s the final two hours at Daytona the place it occurs,” says Magnussen, who shares the pole-winning #24 Rahal entry with Vanthoor, Philipp Eng and Raffaele Marciello at Daytona earlier than switching over to the WEC to share with the final of these three. “You want the toe-ins on the entrance to be right and all of the flicks and the aero elements on the automotive to nonetheless be there.
“You want the automotive to be good and glossy for the final two hours when it actually issues.”
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