BMW Drivers Coming to Grips of “Very Fun” Long Beach Circuit

Philipp Eng said he was “shaking” with excitement while turning his first laps of the Long Beach street circuit in the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8, as one of three BMW M factory drivers that are making their track debuts in this weekend’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race.

Eng, Nick Yelloly and Augusto Farfus are all Long Beach rookies but have prior street circuit experience in Europe and Asia, which they have used to their strengths in coming to grips with the 1.968-mile circuit.

“I just love street circuits in general,” Eng told Sportscar365. “I always enjoyed driving in Monaco in Porsche Supercup, for example. I like the Norisring in DTM, but this place is on a different level.

“You just have the wall so close. You have no time to rest almost. It’s very bumpy as well. But after four or five laps you get into a nice rhythm, so this is actually a very, very fun track.”

Yelloly added: “It’s quite different. “But this is really quite flowing apart from the hairpin of course, so really enjoyable.

“And it’ll be really nice once we get going and I can actually get some really push laps and exploit both the track and the car to see what it’s really about.”

Yelloly’s co-driver in the No. 25 BMW, Connor De Phillippi, is the only member of its full-season driver lineup with previous Long Beach experience.

This weekend marks his fourth start in the West Coast street race, but his first in prototype machinery.

According to Yelloly, De Phillippi’s familiarity with the circuit has proven valuable in helping him get up to speed on an unfamiliar track.

“On the track walk yesterday, I was picking his brain on what bumps to use and what not to use and maybe potential overtaking places or places to really try and avoid,” he said.

“It’s good he’s in my car as well so I can constantly hassle him. I will be leaning on him a lot, particularly this year to try to get as much information as possible and try and accelerate the learning process.”

Unlike many of the standalone WeatherTech Championship races, the series shares the track with the NTT IndyCar Series, meaning teams and drivers have less practice time than they would on a traditional race weekend.

“The trickiest part of getting up to grips just would just be finding the limit with the limited amount of time,” said Yelloly.

“Particularly because we are on the back foot after Free Practice 1, [where] there were no real push laps with the 25 [car].”

Eng added: “I think for Augusto and myself, we are two rookies on this track, so it’s just about getting up to speed and getting into a good rhythm.

“We still don’t know the track well enough to really go for it. So, once you realize you’re building up the confidence to get to the point where you’re actually starting to push, that’s very dangerous.”

Both BMWs found themselves in the top-five in the second practice session, with Yelloly putting the No. 25 car third on the charts despite facing a software issue in Friday’s morning session.

Yelloly: Sebring Was “Step Forward” for Program

BMW M Team RLL enters the third round of the season on the heels of a surprise podium finish in last month’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, where Yelloly, De Philippi and Sheldon van der Linde capitalized on a late-race three-car pileup to finish second.

“In Sebring we definitely took a good step forward in terms of everything, the complete package,” Yelloly said. “But we know staying out of trouble, particularly at the end of the race is always key at Sebring, and I could see it getting quite feisty.

“I didn’t think three of them would go off. I thought maybe one or two, and we kept it clean and was able to get that podium.

“For the boys and girls working all the hours both here and in Munich, we really needed it, so that was pretty awesome to be able to get that.”

Yelloly believes there’s still more potential in the package to continue making gains on the GTP competition.

“I think we’ve still got things – as every team will do – to do to make the software slightly better then work on the setup more,” he said.

“You need to be able to test when you’ve only got two-and-a-half hours to kind of practice on a track that’s developing the whole time. Really maximizing test points is quite difficult. As long as we’re aiming in the right direction, I’m happy.

“Everyone is working their ass off just to make sure we go in the right direction.

“People forget, RLL and BMW haven’t actually driven prototypes at any of these circuits whereas – I know Porsche haven’t – the other two, Cadillac and Acura have, so usually we’ll be fining our feet a little bit.

“But today we’ve rolled out and we had the other car with no issues. They’ve been relatively competitive, so that’s what we want a bit more of.”