BMW ‘Not Closing the Door’ on LMDh Customer Cars

BMW “will not close the door” on the idea of making the M Hybrid V8 available to customer teams, but feels the need to set up a customer program “in the proper way” that would likely take several years to materialize.

The German manufacturer’s  motorsport director Andreas Roos told Sportscar365 that it is not ruling out the idea of the Dallara-chassised LMDh car competing outside of its works efforts with Team RLL and Team WRT.

Thus far, Porsche has been the only manufacturer to make its LMDh car available to customers since the ruleset debuted last year.

Hertz Team JOTA became the first Hypercar customer squad to take a race win in the FIA World Endurance Championship following last weekend’s 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.

Meanwhile Proton Competition has raced the 963 in WEC as well as in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, where JDC-Miller Motorsports also competes in the GTP class with a customer effort.

Meanwhile, rival LMDh manufacturers have downplayed or outright ruled out the prospect of selling its cars to customer teams.

Most notably, GM sports car racing program manager Laura Wontrop Klauser told reporters in March that “customer cars are not happening” with regards to the Cadillac V-Series.R.

Lamborghini, meanwhile, downplayed the prospect of the SC63 racing in customer hands for at least 2025.

When it comes to BMW, Roos indicated that the brand remains open to the idea of making the M Hybrid V8 available in a non-works capacity, but that a lot of boxes would need to be ticked to make it possible.

“We will not close the door, definitely not,” Roos told Sportscar365.

“But let’s say it has to be where we feel very comfortable and where our potential customer can feel that he is comfortable to do it.

“Otherwise, we would also not do it. But I don’t want to say no.”

Roos alluded that BMW has been receiving interest from potential customers about the M Hybrid V8, but that it would need to evaluate setting up a customer support network before it is willing to commit to selling the car.

“Definitely in the first year in the IMSA championship and also now in the first year here [in WEC], we said we concentrate first on our factory effort,” Roos said.

“It’s not something that we want to say will not happen. For sure there is interest also from customers on our car side, but we clearly have to investigate how this could be done, because at the end it’s a very big effort to do it.

“And if we want to do it, then we also want in the proper way, in the proper style that also our customers have all the tools and everything what is needed to be competitive. This is what we investigate and look what is possible.”

Even with that, Roos hinted that a realistic scenario for seeing the M Hybrid V8 in customer hands would still be several years away.

“To be honest, when you want to do it in 2026, you have to start already now,” he said.

“Not only on our side, on the BMW side, but also the team would have to prepare everything, get everything up.

“So for sure, it would still be possible. But maybe the chance is higher that it will happen in [2027] or something like this.

“But I mean, the cars are homologated until end of 2027. So there’s definitely another full three seasons.

“So there’s still, let’s say, plenty of time to also maybe have customer cars in the grid.”