Expanded BMW Pro Class Presence Strikes “Right Balance”

Augusto Farfus believes BMW has struck the “right balance” with four Pro cars at the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa as the Munich manufacturer is represented by its largest top-category contingent at the race in five years.

With two cars each from Team WRT and ROWE Racing, BMW boasts its largest presence in the top category since 2018 when Walkenhorst Motorsport led a 1-2 finish as part of a three-car effort with the BMW M6 GT3.

In the final years of the M6 program, as well as last year’s maiden outing with two ROWE-run M4 GT3s, BMW’s Pro effort was limited to two cars.

Farfus, who drives the No. 46 Team WRT car alongside Valentino Rossi and Maxime Martin, believes the four-car field brings growth and allows BMW to ensure its entries are looked after well as it targets a return to the podium.

“Some people say the more cars, the more chance you have, which to an extent is right,” Farfus told Sportscar365.

“But you have to also be careful as soon as you start having too many cars that you can deliver the same quality to all cars. I think four cars is a very good number.

“If you bring eight pro cars, it’s a massive effort to keep eight cars under control. So I think two, maybe last year was too [few]. Four, I think, is the right balance.”

BMW M Motorsport boss Andreas Roos described his brand’s increased top-category presence as “definitely a benefit” at the event.

“Especially in a big race like this, the more competitive cars you have, you increase your chance,” he suggested.

“You gather more information, you gather more data but you also have more sharp weapons in the race which can fight for the victory. At the end, yes it’s definitely a benefit.”

BMW M Motorsport’s sharing of data is controlled from the top by the manufacturer, which cooperates with engineers at the two customer teams and steers them in certain directions if necessary.

“The data sharing, BMW has the control of it, so it’s not like we are sharing everything,” said Farfus.

“But of course, BMW is there, because you also have to give the credit to the team, which are developing to the creativity of the engineer, so we have to let them free.

“BMW is just following from the top, if they see probably someone that’s going in the wrong direction, I’m sure they will come and say, look, maybe you are a bit off.”

ROWE driver Philipp Eng feels that the increased prominence of the GT3 effort, as well as the recent success of the manufacturer’s LMDh program, has put the brand on an upward trajectory.

“You can feel it in the whole company when you walk in there,” said the Austrian driver, who leads the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup alongside his co-drivers Nick Yelloly and Marco Wittmann.

“Everybody is very positive across all projects, because now finally in LMDh we also got great success as a group which was very important.

“Back in the M6 days, I think the M6 was just pretty difficult to drive compared to the M4. In the development phase of the M4, we made sure that the car has a bigger window so basically everybody can drive it on a pretty good level.”

Similarly to Farfus, Eng pointed to certain benefits that come with the expanded effort, noting that it allows the teams to remain competitive with other cars when a team encounters problems.

“Epecially in this race as everybody drives in the same category it’s only an advantage to have more cars because it’s very likely to be involved in an accident,” said Eng.

“Even though the cars are very well developed this applies to everybody, you can have technical failures so the more cars you have the better.”

John Dagys contributed to this report