Vanthoor: Two Cars in Hyperpole “A Little Reward” for BMW

Dries Vanthoor hailed BMW’s performance in qualifying for Lone Star Le Mans, where both cars pushed through into Hyperpole for the first time, as “a little reward” for its effort in its debut Hypercar campaign.

The Belgian, piloting the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8, qualified eighth for the sixth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, one place behind Robin Frijns in the sister car.

With the exception of the season-opening Qatar 1812km, the German brand has had one of its cars in Hyperpole at each event thus far.

Notably, Saturday’s qualifying session marked the first time that both Dallara-chassised LMDh cars made it into the top ten.

Vanthoor described Hyperpole as “positive session” for BMW M Team WRT, but added that “there is still a lot of work still to do” as the team looks to close the gap to the frontrunners in class.

“At the end, there is still a gap that has to get closer,” Vanthoor told Sportscar365

“But I think for the work we put in, I think it’s a little reward we can take. I think we should be happy today.

“Tomorrow is a new day, it’s a new challenge, so we have to see that differently.

“But I think considering today, we should take that and be happy with the work we did.

“But again, it doesn’t mean that we can all be super happy and lay down. For sure, there is still a lot of work still to do.”

BMW M Motorsport director Andreas Roos was pleased with the progress made across Friday and Saturday, noting that the brand can be “generally happy with the whole weekend until now.”

“I think from the first Free Practice session on, we showed quite good pace,” Roos said. 

“For sure it also helped to be testing here some weeks ago. But yeah, I think we can be happy with having two cars in Hyperpole.

“Everything is very close together. I think generally when you see how close both the cars are, it’s important to get everything together.

“Also, both cars are very close together, so at the end I think we showed performance, but we still have a way to go to the pole position, but I think it was a good first step.”

WRT team boss Vincent Vosse estimated that the two cars could have potentially qualified on the second row, which was eventually occupied by Cadillac and Alpine.

“If we put everything together, P4 was the target,” said Vosse.

“I think we see that the Ferrari looks very strong, but fighting with the Caddy probably and the Alpine was probably something accessible.”

The leading BMW, in the hands of Frijns, qualified 0.131 seconds down on fourth-placed Charles Milesi while the gap to Alex Lynn in third was 0.202 seconds.

Frijns indicated after qualifying that a faster lap could have been possible, had it not been for a slower final sector.

“After my first push lap, I was on a better lap the next lap,” Frijns told Sportscar365.

“So out of Turn 9 I was two, two and a half tenths quicker, but then I lost it all in the last sector.

“So you could say there was more in it. But I think everybody has this moment [where they] could go on a tenth or two quicker.”

The Dutchman reckoned the track characteristics of the Austin circuit, with more high-speed corners, is also better suited to the M Hybrid V8.

“We kind of feel pretty okay in the high-speed segment in the esses,” said Frijns.

“We’ve always been very strong in sector especially. We’re lacking a bit in the low-speed and Sao Paulo was especially very low-speed corners. So I think that hurts us a bit more.

“We are definitely progressing. BMW and WRT are pushing hard to be better. Let’s just hope for a good race and some good points.”