On a disappointing day for its GT3 programme, which failed to defend its overall victory from 2025, the BMW M3 Touring 24H gave the Bavarian marque cause to celebrate at this year’s Nürburgring 24 Hours.
Connor De Phillippi, Jens Klingmann, Neil Verhagen and Ugo de Wilde put together a near-flawless race on their way to fifth overall, with the Schubert Motorsport-run, SP-X-class machine proving more than capable of going toe-to-toe against its more conventional GT3 rivals in the SP9 category.
The #81 M3 Touring 24H first cycled into the top 10 at the opening round of stops after electing to pit early, and remained there for the rest of the 24 hours. It ran as high as second when the rain arrived on Saturday evening, before eventually settling into a fight for podium places against the #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin, #84 Red Bull Team Abt Lamborghini and #99 ROWE Racing M4 GT3 Evo.
The car might have come up just short of making the overall rostrum, but the result still comfortably exceeded expectations, and firmly secured the M3 Touring 24H’s place in the history books as one of the most successful one-off designs to grace a sportscar grid.
“It’s better than what we ever expected to do with the Touring here,” said Andreas Roos, Head of BMW M Motorsport. “We always said if we go here with the Touring, it has to be a competitive car, but that it’s that competitive that we can have a top five result with the car is great.”
The result is all the more impressive considering the importance placed on making sure that the car made the finish, meaning that the team had to adopt a different risk-reward mindset to their SP9 rivals.
“That was the tricky part for me, because the racer in me wanted to go flat out, and take more risk than was necessary at some points, but the goal needed to remain that the car had to cross the finish line as well,” Verhagen revealed.
“The goal was just to finish the race, to give the fans a full 24 hours of watching the M3 Touring 24H, but the expectation and the goal quickly changed.
“Once we saw what kind of pace we had from the from the practice and the qualifying, we were like ‘a top 10 finish would be great’. And as we got settled into the race, the expectations started to go further, to a top five, and then at the end we were like, ‘oh, the podium is even possible for us.’
“So in the end, it’s a great feeling, but at the same time a podium would have been so nice, so the racer in me is a bit disappointed that we didn’t get on the podium.”
The #81 BMW built its performance off a near-flawless race, with its biggest scare coming when Jens Klingmann ran through the gravel at Aremberg on Sunday morning due to an oil spillage on track. Oil leakages ended up proving to be a critical factor in this year’s race, with two major multi-car incidents triggered by their consequential sudden loss of grip.
“There was a lot of oil in this year’s 24 hours,” said Verhagen. “I almost had an off, just a couple wheels in the grass, and I think Connor also had one where he was a couple of wheels in the grass. Fortunately, no barrier contacts or anything. Jens did a great job as well, to avoid having an accident with the car that was stuck in the gravel.
“It was very tricky conditions, a lot of the top cars were going out pretty early, and it was a pretty chaotic and hectic race all around. Schubert Motorsport did an amazing job, giving us a car that could survive the entire race. In the end, we just got very unfortunate with some of the Code 60s.
“When we look back at the race and where we lost all the time to where the podium positions were, it was pretty much in the Code 60 zones. I think we ended up getting a couple of extras that some of the other guys didn’t, which obviously hurt us a little bit.”
It’s clear that the American driver enjoyed the chance to race something other than his regular M4 GT3 Evo, and play a role in a programme which is likely to live fondly in the memory of BMW and fans alike.
“I think it was an incredible project that BMW Motorsport put together,” he said. “I hope the fans enjoyed it. It was obviously a spectacular car to look at, so hopefully it was looking as fast and as good as it looked out on the pitlane. I’m just very proud and thankful to BMW to be able to be on the project.
“I think ending it like we did here is a great way to close a chapter on the M3 Touring 24H and and hopefully it goes into a nice museum somewhere, and everyone will be able to enjoy it then.”
Post-race, Roos also reaffirmed that we’re unlikely to see the M3 Touring 24H in competition again. “It’s difficult, because the car is not according to any GT3 homologation, because to start with GT3 cars have to be a two-door car, and not a five-door car,” he said. “But we have some plans with what we can do with the car, and you will see it somewhere,” he stated.
The German did, however, leave the door open to BMW running a similar programme in the future. “We first celebrate this,” he said. “And then we will see what we will do next.”
Images courtesy of Frozenspeed
