The decision announced last week by BMW Motorsport to sever ties with two of their most successful partner teams seems to has left both Team Schnitzer and Team RBM in difficult positions.
BMW’s decision was linked to a re-focusing on their road car production activities in the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic and subsequent very challenging trading conditions and financial results.
Our friends at Touring Car Times are reporting that Schnitzer team manager Herbert Schnitzer Jr has confirmed to German media that “a company closure is inevitable”, this a response to a combination of factors including the COVID19 down-turn, a financial settlement with the estate of long-time Team Principal Charly Lamm, and a lack of replacement factory partnership opportunities as well as the blow of the BMW decision to cease support.
RBM meanwhile issued a statement stating that the Racing Bart Mampaey squad will “Scale down the team in its racing activities and to bring in the RBM values and skills into other industries.”
“As a team principal, I have the responsibility for my staff. I cannot keep a full team running with all 30 employees without being able to 100 per cent confirm that we will compete and that all jobs are safe. My staff is very important to me, they are like a family partly since 25 years and I don’t want them to live with uncertainties. So it was better to take the hard decision to restructure the team and to scale down the racing activities and to see what other opportunities arise outside of motorsports. And my employees fully support me in this decision.
“So we have to take the decisions that we think are the best to keep RBM at the sharp end and ready for opportunities when they arise. In this case it means dramatically downscaling the racing activities. But that does not mean that the motorsport chapter is closed now. We want to continue racing and are seeing what options we will have.
“For the moment, I am looking into other opportunities where we can bring in our typical RBM values and skills. What distinguishes us are our engineering and operational know-how, our sense for excellence, our focus on efficiency and close team work that is based on strong human relationships. I think these values and skills could allow us to gain a firm foothold also in other industries than motorsports. We have contacted external partners with this idea and they are enthusiastic and believe this could be interesting. You always say: when one door closes, another door opens. So I am excited to see what options will arise in the future.”
