BMW to Continue With Full Season GTP Program in 2026

BMW is set to continue with its full-time GTP program in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship next year, the brand’s head of motorsport Andreas Roos has confirmed.

The Bavarian manufacturer announced a ‘long-term commitment’ to its factory LMDh program with the M Hybrid V8 in July, outlining that it plans to keep racing in both the WeatherTech Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship.

At the time of the announcement, BMW did not outline whether or not it would remain a full-time competitor in the WeatherTech Championship or downscale its program to include the Michelin Endurance Cup rounds only.

BMW M Motorsport boss Roos confirmed to Sportscar365 on Friday that the manufacturer remains committed to the full season with its GTP effort.

“That’s definitely our plan,” Roos said. “There was internally never a discussion to really change something there.

“So for us, it only makes sense to commit to the championship. And as we said, we want to continue in both championships.

“There is no reason why we should change also something there in terms of how we compete in the in the championships.”

BMW is set to head into the 2026 season with a revised version of its Dallara-chassised LMDh challenger, revealing an updated version of the car with a different front end and smaller kidney grille late last month.

Meanwhile, its new WeatherTech Championship service provider, which will replace previous longtime partner Team RLL, has not yet been announced.

Team WRT, which currently runs the factory Hypercar program in WEC, is expected to take over the U.S. operation.

When it comes to BMW’s lineup of Hypercar drivers, Roos indicated that the brand is pleased with its current roster and that changes for next year are unlikely.

“I think we can be super happy with our very strong driver lineup which we have,” he said. “We made the change from 2024 to 2025 to really get less drivers involved in the Hypercar but therefore specialize them on the Hypercar topic.

“Also having drivers doing both championships like Sheldon [van der Linde] and Dries [Vanthoor] helped us a lot to develop both programs because you also have an information and knowledge transfer between the two championships on the driver side, which helped us.

“There is also no reason for us to change anything there, so we are super happy with our driver lineups in both championships and there is also for us no reason at the moment why we should change anything there.”