BMW confident it can challenge for WEC wins after breakthrough podium finish

BMW now has the “speed to fight for victories” in the World Endurance Championship with its M Hybrid V8 LMDh, believes WRT team boss Vincent Vosse.

Vosse made the statement after the #15 WRT BMW, shared by Marco Wittmann, Raffaele Marciello and Dries Vanthoor, took its first podium in the M Hybrid WEC Hypercar class with second place behind Porsche at the 6 Hours of Fuji last Sunday.

“We had the speed to fight the Porsche and fight for the win, but P2 is still good, we’ll take that,” Vosse told Autosport.

“We have proven that we are now in the mix, that we can compete.”

The performance from BMW’s Fuji, which also marked the M Hybrid’s best WEC qualifying performance with a third position for Vanthoor, came after a step forward was taken in Austin earlier this month.

The best BMW at the Circuit of The Americas, the #20 car shared by Rene Rast, Robin Frijns and Sheldon van der Linde, was on course for fifth before being given a drive-through penalty in the penultimate hour and then sixth before stopping a lap late at the final pit stop and being penalised again for exceeding the energy limit for the stint.

Vosse revealed that WRT and BMW were unsure whether they could continue this at Fuji, a circuit where the M Hybrid had never raced or tested before.

“There was clearly a change in the course, but we showed here with our best results in qualifying and the race that we are still making progress,” said Vosse.

#15 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8: Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello, Marco Wittmann

Photo by: Andreas Beil

“We are improving everything, the team, the car and the drivers’ understanding of the car. The Balance of Performance has also helped us.

“We weren’t the fastest today, but we were there and we did our job.”

Vosse suggested that BMW could have won the race at Fuji had Marciello not suffered a broken left rear rim when he was involved in an incident with Cadillac driver Earl Bamber in the third hour.

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With Marciello having to pit early to hand over the race to Vanthoor, the strategic advantage the car had gained by stopping under the first Virtual Safety Car leading into a full safety car was lost.

When asked whether BMW will go to the 2024 WEC finale in Bahrain to win the race, Vosse did not want to say anything yet.

“We are going to Bahrain with the confidence that we will be up there somewhere,” he said.

“It would be difficult to say we are going to win because Hypercar is so competitive now.

“We are getting there step by step, but to win everything has to be perfect and today it wasn’t for us because our rim was broken.”