BMW M Motorsport will have seven entries in the upcoming Indianapolis 8 Hour race on Saturday, 5 October. Among them are two entries from defending race winners Team WRT featuring six BMW works drivers.
The Shell-sponsored #31 WRT BMW M4 GT3 will be driven by two-thirds of last year’s Indy 8 Hour-winning trio – Sheldon van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor – alongside Charles Weerts. Together, Van der Linde, Vanthoor, and Weerts finished third in this year’s 24 Hours of Spa.
Joining them in the #33 WRT BMW are 2020 Indy 8 Hour winner Augusto Farfus, Max Harper, and Max Hesse, the full-time drivers of the #99 ROWE Racing BMW in GT World Challenge Europe. They started the season with a victory in the 3 Hours of Paul Ricard and finished sixth at Spa-Francorchamps.
Weerts is currently second in the Intercontinental GT Challenge Drivers’ Championship heading into the final round at Indianapolis, behind Porsche’s Ayhancan Güven and Laurens Vanthoor, and BMW currently sits second in the Manufacturers’ Championship behind Porsche.
BMW M factory drivers will also feature in each of the manufacturers’ five entries that have competed full-time in GT World Challenge America.
Random Vandals Racing announced in April that 2020 Indy 8H winner Connor de Phillippi will join Kenton Koch and Conor Daly in the #99 BMW.
His regular IMSA co-driver, Nick Yelloly, will also be in the race, driving the #8 Flying Lizard Motorsports BMW with its regular Pro-Am pairing of Elias Sabo and Andy Lee.
Also returning is the third driver from last year’s winning line-up, Philipp Eng – who’s just coming off a win in the IMSA Battle on the Bricks six-hour endurance race. Eng will drive for ST Racing in the #28 BMW alongside BMW’s longest-tenured factory driver, Bill Auberlen.
ST Racing’s #38 car driven by Samantha Tan and Neil Verhagen currently leads the GT World Challenge America Pro-Am standings over Turner Motorsport’s Justin Rothberg and Robby Foley. John Capestro-Dubets has already been announced as the third driver alongside Tan and Verhagen, while Turner has yet to announce its third driver in the #29 BMW.
Andreas Roos, Head of BMW M Motorsport, remarked: “We have the best memories of the Indianapolis 8 Hours. Last year, and also in 2020, BMW M Motorsport was able to celebrate victory at the legendary Motor Speedway. As the defending champions, Team WRT is once again at the start with a very strong line-up of BMW M works drivers. We have selected the driver pairings in such a way that we have the best possible chance of influencing the title decision for the driver’s standings in the Intercontinental GT Challenge, in addition to the manufacturer’s standings.
“Furthermore, I am pleased to see an impressive line-up of cars from our North American customer teams. Five BMW M4 GT3s in the starting field of the GT World Challenge America shows how popular our GT3 flagship is worldwide. It is an honour for us to support these teams with BMW M works drivers at their season highlight.”
Images © Fabian Lagunas / SRO Motorsports America, Gary Parravani / BMW
