LMDh Promotion “the Sooner the Better” for BMW’s Hesse

Max Hesse says a graduation to an LMDh race seat with BMW is a case of “the sooner the better” after he completed test outings with the car in Bahrain and Daytona.

The German racer completed his first significant public LMDh mileage when he piloted the BMW M Hybrid V8 at the post-season FIA World Endurance Championship rookie test at the Bahrain International Circuit, an opportunity also presented to fellow former Junior Team member Dan Harper.

For Hesse, this was followed up by an additional outing joining BMW M Team RLL for the IMSA-sanctioned test at Daytona International Speedway in November.

Hesse and Harper came up through BMW’s Junior Team program before becoming fully-fledged factory drivers in 2023 and have since competed in the likes of the Intercontinental GT Challenge and Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS together.

Both drivers driving the Dallara-chassised prototype comes after BMW M Motorsport director Andreas Roos said the brand is taking a ’360-degree approach’ to its 2025 lineups across WEC and IMSA.

Hesse expressed the hope of being able to step up to the Munich marque’s prototype program after several years racing GT machinery for the brand.

“For me, obviously, I would like to do it next year, but that’s not in my hands,” Hesse said. 

“So we just keep working. We have some goals still to do in GT racing. And then whenever Andreas [Roos] feels like we’re ready and he would like us to be there, we will definitely say yes. 

“But I don’t have, let’s say, a plan of how many years [before stepping up to LMDh]. As mentioned, there are still some very big races in GT we want to win next year altogether. 

“So if it’s going to be next year in two or three years I don’t know. The sooner the better, obviously.

“I think for sure we still have a lot of learning to do. So it’s not like I’m race ready to jump in next week. 

“But definitely some more testing would help and also to be more in the simulator and just to follow more the events is good.

“So there’s definitely still a lot of things we have to learn, Dan and myself, but yeah, hopefully getting there.”

Hesse believes that his real-world mileage will serve as a boost to BMW’s prototype effort regardless of whether or not he secures a race seat, as he will be able to take his real-life experience and apply it to his work as a simulator driver.

“For me, obviously doing all the simulator work, it was also nice and helpful to finally drive the real car,” he said.

“I think generally this will move the program forward in the next few months as well, giving some input back to Munich now. 

“But I can also say that we’ve done a very good job already on the simulator side because I felt very prepared coming in today. 

“This has also been proven after the first couple of laps. 

“We definitely have still some tweaks to do at home as well, but I think we have a good base at the moment.”

Hesse’s simulator comments were echoed by Harper, who describes his virtual experience as “very helpful” in preparing for real world testing.

“Obviously, I drove the simulator in Munich, which now I can tell you is very representative and very helpful,” he said.

“Now that I’ve driven the real car, it’s very comparable, which was very good. And also I think certain things that we can still improve on the sim, which I think is good for us to know and we can also develop for next year and it’ll just help everything.

“I think for me the trickiest thing was getting used to the braking and the performance in general.

“Like the initial hit on the brake, the amount of performance you get, but then if you hold it too long, then you’re straight locking up the tire. So it’s difficult, but really, really fun.”

Jamie Klein contributed to this report