BMW M Motorsport experienced an eventful 12 Hours of Sebring in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. In the second round of the season, BMW M Team WRT finished sixth in the GTP class. Sheldon van der Linde, Robin Frijns and Dries Vanthoor completed 343 laps and crossed the line 13.723 seconds behind the winning #7 Porsche. Starting from eighth on the grid, the trio in the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 was in contention for podium positions for long periods. After a turbulent closing phase, however, van der Linde ultimately brought the car home in fifth place.
The second BMW M Team WRT driver line-up – Philipp Eng, Marco Wittmann and Kevin Magnussen – suffered an early setback at Sebring International Raceway. Wittmann was at the wheel of the #25 BMW M Hybrid V8 when, early in the fifth hour, the car was hit through no fault of its own by another vehicle that had previously spun. The resulting repairs cost the team more than half an hour and many laps. As a consequence, the trio of BMW M works drivers was unable to finish higher than tenth place.
With the BMW M4 GT3 EVO, the teams from Paul Miller Racing and Turner Motorsport were fighting for top positions in the GTD field again. The Daytona winners Connor De Phillippi, Max Hesse and Neil Verhagen finished fifth in the GTD-PRO category for Paul Miller Racing with the #1 car. In the GTD class, BMW M works driver Robby Foley, Patrick Gallagher and Francis Selldorff came fifth for Turner Motorsport, sharing driving duties in the #96 car.
After the strong start in Daytona with victory in GTD-PRO and a podium finish in GTP, we were naturally hoping for another top result. However, we have to clearly say that in the GTP class we lacked the pace to compete at the very front – and that made a podium finish impossible. On the GTD and GTD-PRO side we have a fast car with our BMW M4 GT3 EVO, but we were a bit unlucky in the race.
It was a tough weekend. At some stage we were looking good. But we gambled on the penultimate full course yellow, and it didn’t work out. Still it was a strong weekend from the guys. There are some positives to take away.
Driver statements.
Sheldon van der Linde (#24 BMW M Hybrid V8, BMW M Team WRT, 5th place GTP): “I think a P6 is the maximum we could have got out of the car today. We struggled a lot in qualifying to get the car to work. The same issue we had in Daytona, but we proved that we have a much better race car over a longer distance. I’m kind of happy to have fought back from P8 on the grid, but at the same time disappointed with not being able to get on the podium when we were third and fourth for a while. It's still good points for the championship. I think these results are important on days where the car is maybe not the best, but we're still scoring points in the top six. So thanks a lot to the team. Execution was phenomenal today, but we just need to find pace in the car.”
Marco Wittmann (#25 BMW M Hybrid V8, BMW M Team WRT, 10th place GTP): “It was a very difficult weekend for us – nothing really came together. For us in the #25, things didn’t go our way: the Ferrari in the GTD class ahead of us spun. There was a gap, I went for it, and at that exact moment he tried to get going again and hit me at the rear left. That meant we had to come in for repairs. I can only thank the team and the mechanics, as they got the car back on track in a very short time. After that, it was basically about finishing the race and learning as much as possible. But we also have to be honest – we didn’t have the pace this weekend. That’s something we now need to analyse so we can come back stronger in Long Beach."
Neil Verhagen (#1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Paul Miller Racing, 5th place GTD-PRO): “Our goal was to carry the momentum from our Daytona win into Sebring and score as many points as possible for the endurance championship. That worked well with first and third positions after four and eight hours. Unfortunately, towards the end we didn’t quite have the pace to fight for a podium against our competitors."
Robby Foley (#96 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Turner Motorsport, 5th place GTD): “We had an up-and-down day. Our car was fast at the beginning of the race, and then we took some damage throughout the course of it. There were a couple of strategy decisions at the end that could have gone either way. We gave it our best shot. P5 is great points again. We’ll take them and move on to Long Beach.”