Vanthoor: Making Most of New BMW Aero Will “Take Time”

Dries Vanthoor has cautioned that making the most of the BMW M Hybrid V8’s new aerodynamic package will “take time” ahead of this weekend’s opening round of the FIA World Endurance Championship season at Imola.

BMW is one of several Hypercar manufacturers that has played an Evo joker for the upcoming season, introducing a major overhaul of the car’s front end that notably features a smaller ‘kidney grille’ among other improvements.

The car has already made two appearances in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, scoring a podium on its debut in the Rolex 24 at Daytona with Vanthoor, Robin Frijns and Sheldon van der Linde sharing driving duties.

But Vanthoor, who will be taking part in this weekend’s WeatherTech Championship round at Long Beach, downplayed BMW’s chances of making an instant impact in what will be the WRT-run outfit’s third year in Hypercar owing to the shift in set-up approach needed to make the most of the revised car’s strengths.

“Our main point that we needed to work on was consistency, especially during the stint and during the race, that the car stays in a more consistent window, which I think we were struggling with last year,” he told Sportscar365.

“I think we gained a lot. We tried to gain a lot of rear downforce to improve our entry phases. I think this worked, but now we have to just not fully start again, but we have to try to come up with a different philosophy of setup. And this takes time.

“It’s obviously a big positive that we got what we wanted, but now we have to make it work. And this is the difficult part.”

He added: “Last year’s car was fast, especially on one lap, but it was tough to drive. Now we gained more stability. It’s easier to drive. It’s more consistent. So in terms of traffic, racing other cars, we can be more aggressive.”

Amid a shift in focus towards stability for longer runs, Vanthoor says he hopes this doesn’t come at the expense of the M Hybrid V8’s one-lap pace.

“Feeling-wise now, it could be that it costs us a bit of one-lap performance,” he said. “But at the end of the day, it’s not about being on pole all the time in endurance racing. Obviously, I enjoyed it last year, but it didn’t bring us a lot either.

“I would rather start third or fifth, and have a fast car in the race and win.”

BMW endured a disappointing 2025 campaign in the WEC despite a promising start that included a second-place finish for Rene Rast, van der Linde and Frijns at Imola.

That was to be the last time a BMW featured on the podium all year, as the remaining six races of the season yielded a single top-five finish at Sao Paulo.

Vanthoor said he couldn’t explain BMW’s loss of from in the second half of the year as the Bavarian marque ended up fifth in the manufacturers’ championship, just a single point ahead of sixth-placed Alpine and three clear of Peugeot.

“Obviously, we started the year very well,” Vanthoor reflected. “We qualified in the top three in the first two rounds, which was very strong. And then I think it went a bit downhill and it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why.

“In the first few rounds, we had good pace, so we could fight at the front. But halfway through the year, it disappeared a bit quickly.

“In terms of feeling and execution of the race and what we do as a team, I think we do well. It’s just trying to put everything right on the car, in the car, balance-wise, setup-wise, evolution-wise. I think we need to think about this.”

Asked if the strong start to 2025 was down to track characteristics, Vanthoor replied: “If you look at the evolutions that we made at the end of 2024, we were starting to be stronger. Then going into Qatar, we really kept that up and we actually gained again.

“And then going to Imola, we knew that this was a strong track. So we knew that those first two rounds should have been good for us. But then we also still had good rounds coming like Fuji and Austin, but those were really, really not good.”

BMW is in a minority of Hypercar manufacturers in the WEC yet to win a race, with Cadillac and Alpine having scored their respective breakthrough wins last year.

“We’ve got two podiums now, but obviously, we are not here to finish second or third,” Vanthoor said. “We want to win. Obviously it’s a big goal to try and get that done.

“It’s a box that still needs to get ticked off. And I think it’s an important box that has to get ticked off. So we need to try and get it done.”