The BMW Hypercar programme is here at Le Mans for the third time, and the first with the new and improved Evo package that debuted in the Rolex 24 At Daytona early this year. The next 24 hours of racing will be a crucial test for the upgraded package, but judging from a streak of positive results, the BMW Hypercar is up for the challenge.
In BMW M Team WRT’s first IMSA race, and the first race for the Evo kit, the team and car finished on the podium at Daytona, following it up with a fifth-place finish at Sebring. Debuting on the other side of the pond in WEC at Imola, the #20 and #15 BMWs finished fifth and seventh, respectively.
BMW M Team WRT’s season highlight so far was a commanding one-two finish at Spa, just the second round of the season, perfectly executed by their strategy team and the cunning defence from Kevin Magnussen in the #15 during the final stint of the race.
This victory at the team’s home race — their maiden victory in the WEC series — made a bold statement when holding off reigning champion marque Ferrari, under intense pressure, with significantly worse tyres all while saving energy.
“It was nice to see in Spa that we are going in the right direction. Kevin had to fight that hard with double-stinted tyres against the Ferrari with fresher tyres over so many laps, making no mistakes, keeping the Ferrari behind, let’s say, on the same performance level was really nice to see,” said Andreas Roos, Head of BMW Motorsport.
The competitive pace they demonstrated in the final stages of the 6 Hours of Spa is solid evidence of the upgrades they brought to this season, although the astronomical intensity of the final laps is surely not the ideal scenario to shoot for this time out at Le Mans.
“This also only works when the car is predictable for the drivers. When they have to drive really on the limit, really on the edge, they know what the car is doing.
“For the spectators, it’s for sure nice to see final laps like this. But to be honest, when we are fighting like this on Sunday, maybe for the top result, I think it would be very hard for my nerves!” Roos laughed.
Momentum has been building, and so has the expectations for the German marque ahead of the biggest race of the season. Throughout Le Mans testing and practice, Roos confirmed that both cars have been completing long runs exclusively.
Based on the times they were running in the depths of their long runs, BMW look like a big contender in terms of race pace, not to mention that three different BMW Hypercar drivers occupy the top seven fastest times in practice overall.
“We felt pretty okay from the beginning. For sure, we had to sort out some things and get the car, let’s say, in the right window for the race week here. But we concentrated mainly on long run pace, getting some tyre IDs, to get more knowledge about the tyres and the working window of the tyres. This was our main focus.”
“When we did some triple stints on the tyres, we still felt in the third stint quite okay. For sure, you have a bit of a degradation, and things like this. We managed to find a way that the car can work over a long distance at a very high level, and very consistent, giving the drivers good feedback, and consistent feedback so that they know what they have to do.”
This is very likely thanks specifically to the Evo package, which specifically targeted consistency and expanded the car’s ideal performance window.
“It’s mainly the consistency [that has improved the most]. And this we saw in the endurance runs and long runs we did, that the drivers can consistently drive at a super high level. This was our main focus with the Evo package, and this is as we saw in the beginning [of the season], it went in the right direction, and proving it here also in Le Mans.”
Both the #20 and the #15 made it into Hyperpole with very solid fourth and sixth-place Qualifying performances. Dries Vanthoor in the #15 was undeniable on Thursday evening, building off of his teammate’s performances in Qualifying and Hyperpole 1, and logged a Hypercar record lap of 3:22.564 for pole position. The #20 car qualified fourth, set to fight from the second row.
In the provisional results, the #38 Cadillac was on pole with a time just 0.005 seconds quicker than Vanthoor’s, but would have its time deleted due to a post-qualifying penalty.
Before the penalty was applied, the hair’s width margin to the Cadillac was a gutting end to the session, with that lap time coming just after the checkered flag, after Vanthoor’s lap time looked untouchable, over 0.5 seconds quicker than the field.
“To be five-thousandths behind [the Cadillac] was, I would not say painful, but when you’re so close, you would like to have it.”
BMW’s standout performance in qualifying was somewhat unexpected. Having focused intently on tyre performance and utilised all their track time to gather long-run data, Roos commented that they had not run any representative qualifying simulations in preparation for Hyperpole.
“We said if we managed to be with both cars in the top ten, we’re already super, super happy.
“We actually never went really into single lap time performance, or trying to optimise qualifying performance. So in the end, it’s even nicer to see that the performance is there also in the single-lap pace, and that we could fight for the pole position.
“In the end, it’s a 24-hour race. We know how [little] the starting position counts, but when you get the pole position in such a prestigious race like Le Mans, it’s still something nice, to be honest.”
Starting from pole position and having a fair indication of their long-run capability from hours of practice this week, this BMW M Team WRT squad his firmly in the running to become the first overall victors for BMW since 1999.
Images © dailysportscar.com
