How high can BMW Team RLL climb during this weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona? Dries Vanthoor’s performance in Qualifying today suggests all the way to the summit, after powering the German brand to its first GTP pole position in the #24 M Hybrid V8.
The Belgian, who put in multiple standout performances for BMW in the FIA WEC’s Hypercar class last year, was masterful on the high banks this afternoon.
In the bitterly cold conditions, he beat the best that Porsche, Acura, Cadillac and Lamborghini have to offer in GTP to put himself, full-season teammate Philipp Eng, Raffaele Marciello and new BMW signing Kevin Magnussen fastest ahead of the race on Saturday.
“For sure it wasn’t easy with the red flag (incidentally, caused by the sister BMW stopping on track),” Vanthoor told the media after qualifying. “It makes tyre warming a bit more difficult for everyone. That was a big struggle for us last year, but we have been improving a lot. Then it was just about getting the lap together and trying to do the best that I could. That worked out, luckily, so I am very happy.
“We’ve been working hard,” he added. “It’s nice to see that it’s working for everyone here, and also everyone back at the factory. I think everybody can be happy and proud of that, but (the pole) is a little cherry on a big cake and there’s still a big thing still to happen. That’s the race, and that can go any way.”
Claiming pole for a race as big as the Rolex 24 means a nice set of headlines for BMW to look over, but how much of an indication does it give us of the GTP hierarchy for the weekend?
History certainly tells us that setting the quickest time during Qualifying doesn’t guarantee anything for the American twice-around-the-clock classic. It’s a race held on a relatively forgiving circuit, where teams traditionally take a cautious approach to the first three-quarters of the race, waiting for a late caution to show their hand.
Last year the Action Express Racing Cadillac set a track record (with a lap more than a second quicker than this year’s best time in Qualifying) en route to pole and finished second to the #7 Penske Porsche. And in fact, only once since the DPi era began in 2017 has the pole-sitting car won this race, that being the Meyer Shank Racing Acura in the GTP category’s debut in 2023.
Because of this, BMW’s motorsport boss Andreas Roos isn’t keen to shout from the rooftops just yet. However, he does feel that, in a wider sense, the M Hybrid V8’s topping the Roar Test Weekend and taking pole for the Rolex 24 is a significant progress marker for the project.
Through 2023 and 2024 it always felt like there was more to come from the M Hybrid V8 in GTP. Rahal Letterman Lanigan, a team with real pedigree, doesn’t appear to have truly hit its stride at any point yet, capturing just two wins since its debut in the class 24 months ago.
But there’s a renewed sense of optimism around the programme here in Florida, and reason to believe that 2025 could be a big year for BMW’s prototype programme stateside.
“Generally, to kick off the season with pole in Daytona couldn’t be much better,” Roos told DSC. “The work we’ve put into the project has paid off, we’ve shown that we’ve improved the car and got better and better. We were positive about the development work on the car and I think getting the first pole for the M Hybrid V8 is a nice reward.”
Beyond the obvious benefits that come with two seasons of data gathering, software development and general fine-tuning, what’s behind the uptick in form and positivity that surrounds the programme ahead of its third season?
BMW has opted to shake things up in its driver roster across both IMSA and WEC, reducing the pool to eight and placing two drivers (Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde) on double duty in both championships in a bid to boost “team spirit” and power through the season efficiently.
It has also signed off its first official ‘Joker’ update for the car, which debuts here. Roos wasn’t prepared to go into detail on that subject and kept his cards close to his chest when quizzed on specifics by DSC. He did give some hints though.
“Our main work on the car was understanding the car and working on drivability,” he explained. “Look back to the beginning of 2023, the decision to enter Hypercar from BMW was late and we were on the back foot. The one thing you can’t buy is time, and we’ve always had to catch up to the others.
“We used the Joker for this year on the brake side, but I don’t want to be more specific because at the moment not every manufacturer is even revealing if they have taken a Joker. So I think it’s enough to say it’s on the brake side, because last year that was one of our struggles.”
Just how much of a difference will it make once we get down to the business of racing? Roos was quick to point out that its aim is not to make gains in the car’s performance. Instead, it should benefit the team over the course of a season and during long races to make the car more drivable and consistent.
This has become the norm during the current era. It’s a BoP formula after all and for the most part, bringing performance-focused upgrades makes little sense. Thus, the updates we are seeing made to the LMDh cars from Porsche, Cadillac and now BMW are relatively minor and centred around car set-up and reliability.
“It’s about the overall package,” Roos stressed. “It’s not about finding an update that gives you half a second. From the middle of last year on we were only starting to extract what we always hoped to extract from the car. I’ve always said we don’t need a ‘Joker’ as long as we are not extracting 100 per cent of what we have.”
Either way, things appear to be looking up for Team RLL, and BMW hopes that its continued faith in the Indiana-based team as its factory service provider will pay dividends in the end.
“We are all (under pressure),” Roos said. “We also don’t split between RLL and BMW, we are here as a factory team. We work on this as a team and we are here to win races. We want to win championships and not just be a car on the grid. Sure, the longer you are in, the more pressure you have and put on yourself to win.
“In 2023, we had some good races and results, which we didn’t see in 2024. 2024 wasn’t the season we were hoping for, especially not in the beginning, we just made too many mistakes and had too many issues. But the 1-2 victory in Indianapolis was good and it’s always a relief when you show you can win a race.
“Now it’s time to show we can be there at the front consistently.”
Images courtesy of BMW & Andrew Lofthouse
