BMW “Not in a Hurry” to Finalize Hypercar Driver Lineup

Photo: WRT

BMW will be taking its time to finalize the driver lineup for Team WRT’s factory Hypercar effort in the FIA World Endurance Championship next year according to the manufacturer’s motorsport boss Andreas Roos.

The Belgian squad, which will run a pair of BMW M Hybrid V8s in the world championship, recently completed its first test with the LMDh car at Motorland Aragon that saw a half-dozen drivers turn laps.

It included BMW works drivers Sheldon van der Linde, Dries Vanthoor, Jesse Krohn and Maxime Martin, along with BMW Junior Team graduates Max Hesse and Dan Harper later in the weekend.

Rene Rast, who has previously sampled the Dallara-chasssied prototype, was not present due to his ABB FIA Formula E World Championship commitments.

Combined with its current crop of IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship pilots Augusto Farfus, Philipp Eng, Connor De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly, Roos indicated there’s no shortage of driving talent they’ll evaluate for the program.

“This will still take a bit of time as we now start the testing phase,” he told reporters during last weekend’s CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa. “We’re not in a hurry at the moment, to be honest, to define the drivers.

“We want to not only give our IMSA drivers a chance. As you already saw, we had some other drivers in our car.

“We have a very good and strong driver lineup at BMW so we feel quite confident to find and pick the right ones in the end for the WEC championship.”

When asked by Sportscar365 whether all of the seats will be taken from its current 21-driver factory pool, Roos said “this we don’t know yet.”

“In general we have a strong driver lineup at BMW, so we can be happy with this,” he said. “Now we start the testing phase and we will see where we end up and how we do it.

“Because at the end we still need drivers for the IMSA championship, we need drivers for WEC, we still have a lot of GT programs going on, so I think our drivers will not get bored.”

Roos explained that it would be their goal to have a permanent crew of six drivers for the WEC with BMW M Team WRT and four in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with BMW M Team RLL, noting the likelihood of date clashes between the two series next year.

Sportscar365 understands the WEC round at Imola is set to conflict with the WeatherTech Championship round at Long Beach, with the full IMSA schedule set to be released next month.

“The core driver lineups should be for the WEC and the IMSA championships,” Roos said.

He said date clashes with various GT3 championships, such as Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS and Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli, where it supports all-pro entries, would also add to the equation.

“For sure we want to keep the level of what we’re doing with GT3 racing at the moment,” said Roos.

“We want to keep this momentum but on top we have the WEC championship next year, which when you just purely look, it’s six more drivers.

“To answer this question I would need all calendars for next year already on the table and then I can tell you what’s possible.

“What we do this year, our drivers are not only concentrating on one championship; we run them in several championships, also in different cars.

“This is what we want to continue because it’s the right direction to go, to not only have a driver who can do one racing series or one type of class.

“But this depends on how much clashes or if there are clashes and how you can combine all of the championships.

“The amount of races we’re doing with all of the different championships, there’s only a certain amount of race weekends that what you can have and then there’s a chance there’s a clash [with] one or another, and then we will have to see how we work with this.”

WRT Signals Interest for BMW LMGT3 Entries

WRT could represent BMW in both Hypercar and the new-for-2024 LMGT3 classes next year, although Roos stressed that a decision has not yet been taken.

When asked by Sportscar365 if WRT has interest to run a pair of BMW M4 GT3s in the class next year, team principal Vincent Vosse said:  “If you ask a team that’s running GT3 cars for 13 years, of course doing WEC in GT3 is something interesting.

“Is it going to happen? [That’s a] question mark.

“As we are set at the moment, the GT3 program has nothing to do with the LMP (Hypercar) program, so yeah it’s a completely different team.”

Roos added: “You have to keep separate because it’s two different programs and they are not really synergies in the end.

“For sure there’s synergies in terms of build up and what you have there, but running the cars, it’s completely separated.”

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