Vosse: WRT “On Different Planet” With Dual BMW Effort

Vincent Vosse says Team WRT’s parallel Hypercar and LMGT3 programs in the FIA World Endurance Championship are like operating on a “different planet” compared to the team’s previous engagements in sports car racing.

The Belgian powerhouse outfit will make its Hypercar debut in Qatar by fielding a pair of factory BMW M Hybrid V8s but has also entered two BMW M4 GT3s in the LMGT3 class.

It marks the first time that WRT’s two core groups of personnel, one for GT racing and one for prototypes, will work side-by-side in the same race.

While WRT has been active in GT racing for years, the team that is now set to run the pair of factory BMW Hypercars began as part of the Belgian squad’s DTM crew before moving to operate its highly successful LMP2 program in WEC and the European Le Mans Series.

“It’s a pleasure to be able to have four cars on such a grid in such a year,” Vosse told Sportscar365 “We always know that it would be a challenge and we take it with humility. 

“First we have to do a first race. We have to see where we are and from there we can start working on things that have to be improved.

“You only know that once you do your first race. You can do as well as much testing as you want, [but] you only know the point to improve once you do the first race.”

Vosse indicated that WRT has roughly 60-70 operational staff on site between the two programs, but that the crews will be “completely split” from each other.

The majority of personnel are working on the Hypercar side, where WEC sporting regulations limit the number of operational personnel on LMDh-based Hypercar teams to 21 per car.

Another estimated two dozen people are responsible for running the two M4 GT3s, which will see BMW return to WEC’s GT ranks for the first time since the 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Of note, WRT has been rotating some of its GT personnel to avoid overworking them.

The majority of the crew that worked at the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour are not at Qatar, but will instead be going to the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS pre-season test at Paul Ricard.

Vosse made no effort to try and talk down the challenge that WRT faces as it steps up to Hypercar, stressing that the team should take a step-by-step approach and focus on its own operations as it gets up to speed.

“We just finished a three year stint with the LMP2 program,” he said.

“Of course, there we did very well and so the tendency is to put a little bit of pressure on us, like we will be good straight away.

“It’s a different planet. The number of people involved, the technical side of the car, collaboration with the manufacturer, fighting other manufacturers.

“We have to take it. We have to do everything that we believe would be perfect in our first race weekend.

“From there, we would see where we are standing and we will try to improve what we need to improve. But is the BoP good? I have no clue.

“What would be our performance? What would be the tire wear? It’s so large that the only thing you can say is that we believe we have a great group of people.

“We believe we have strong lineups in Hypercar and in GT. It’s a good base to be able to fight for the win in the future.

“At the moment, our only goal would be to focus on managing the race, doing our job, see where we are, and the most important would be the analysis after the race, to see how we can improve a situation.”