Eng: BMW M Team RLL Sweep a “Strategic Masterclass”

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

Philipp Eng hailed BMW M Team RLL’s 1-2 finish in Sunday’s Motul SportsCar Grand Prix at Road America as a “strategic masterclass” as the German manufacturer picked up its long-awaited first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory of the season.

Eng and co-driver Dries Vanthoor ended up victorious in the two-hour and 40-minute sprint race after the call was made to undercut the GTP competition by pitting both BMW M Hybrid V8s with one hour to go under green flag conditions.

The Austrian driver emerged in the lead following the race’s fifth and final full-course caution, which saw the remainder of the class contenders pit for their final stops, and managed the final 37-minute run to the checkered flag.

Eng led home a BMW lockout, with the sister No. 25 car of Marco Wittmann fending off a challenging Renger van der Zande to score the German manufacturer’s first win and 1-2 sweep since last year’s Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“It’s a great team result and a great result for BMW, as well as winning in the GTD [Pro] class, so it’s a great day,” said Vanthoor. “The luck has always not been on our side this season.

“For sure we also made many mistakes ourselves, but today it just worked out.”

The No. 24 car bounced back from a near-disastrous first stop, which saw its driver changer helper get hit by the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 of Tom Blomqvist, who was later assessed a drive-through penalty.

Vanthoor said the incident, which dropped the car to the rear of the GTP field, actually benefitted them in the long-run by being able to take make a risky call on strategy.

“It started off with a very unlucky pit stop where a mechanic was actually quite badly hurt. Luckily he’s fine and he will recover,” he said. “Because we were in such a bad position, we were able to take some risks and it worked out today.

“Also, in the end, our pace actually improved and was strong enough to stay there.

“We’ve been showing that we’ve been fast all season with a couple of pole positions but never really making it into a win.

“Today, even though we weren’t on pole position, we got it to work. It shows you just have to execute a great race, and today we finally made sure we did that.”

The win came just days after BMW officially confirmed that it will part ways with the Bobby Rahal-led organization at the end of the season, with Team WRT set to take over race operations of the manufacturer’s WeatherTech Championship program next year.

“Like our race engineer says, there’s no magic in this sport,” said Eng. “We just tried to do a faultless race, which didn’t start very well in the first pitstop.

“It was quite a hectic situation. My first question was if our mechanic was OK, which he apparently is.

“Then I had to focus again and concentrate because I was standing right next to the scene, it was pretty difficult.

“I got into a good rhythm and at the end of the day, the team did a strategic masterclass and boxed us the very early on the side of the window.

“I just had to bring it home. The car was really fast; it was on rails. We had a very good balance. We just maximized our package today.

“Both cars did a faultless job. Here we are and very happy for everyone involved.”

Runner-up finisher Sheldon van der Linde also credited the strategic call atop the Team RLL pit box for putting both cars in prime position for the end of the race.

“The strategy was key today in trying to bring us back in the game,” he said. “That’s what we love about IMSA is that even when you’re last and second-to-last, you can always find yourself back in the front with good strategy.

“I’m very proud of the guys, with very, very clever strategy at the end.

“Obviously when you’re at the back you can afford to take that risk. If you’re at the front, you wouldn’t take that kind of risk.

“In hindsight that was a blessing in disguise, to be last and second-to-last. We’ll take that for sure.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John