BMW M Team WRT had a disappointing weekend in the sixth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship at Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas, but there were also promising signs that continued development of the M Hybrid V8 has made them more competitive in the Hypercar prototypes class.
BMW M Motorsport boss Andreas Roos said before the six-hour COTA race that their goal was to “demonstrate a clear upward trend and translate the lessons learned from the season so far into strong results.” The team met the first part of that goal, as both the #15 and #20 M Hybrid V8 entries made it into the Hyperpole round in qualifying for the first time this season. Only the top ten cars in the final qualifying round make it into Hypercar, which had eighteen cars on the entry.
Ultimately, the #20 with Robin Frijns at the wheel was the fastest BMW in the Hyperpole session, setting a lap time that was good enough for seventh on the grid, with Dries Vanthoor right behind him in eighth in the #15 car. Both BMWs were within around five-tenths of a second of the pole time set by former Formula 1 driver Antonio Giovinazzi in the #51 Ferrari 499P.
In the LMGT3 class, the #31 BMW M Team WRT M4 GT3 of Augusto Farfus, Darren Leung and Sean Gelael just made it into Hyperpole qualifying with the tenth fastest time but was nearly two seconds off the pole time of the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin. The #46 M4 GT3 of Maxime Martin, Valentino Rossi and Ahmad al Harthy qualified in fifteenth but was only three-hundredths off the time of the #31 car. The last time Valentino Rossi was on the COTA circuit was on his MotoGP bike.
The M Hybrid V8s showed good pace in the race and set lap times that were competitive with the leaders, with René Rast (#20) and Marco Wittmann (#15) moving up to fourth and fifth place as the race progressed. The #20 eventually fell way behind with two penalties, including a 100-second stop-and-hold penalty for a technical infraction. They eventually finished thirteenth. The #15 of Wittmann, Raffaele Marciello and Dries Vanthoor finished in eighth, which was their best result of the year so far. “Austin has shown that for sure we have gained speed,” said Marciello after the race. “We were able to fight more this weekend. We finished in the lead lap, so this is positive. It was the first time we were able to achieve it. We are going into the right direction, and we got good points. We are improving and now let’s see what Fuji brings.” The Hypercar class was won by the #83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P.
In LMGT3, the #31 car had a top five finish, ending up in fifth despite starting from tenth and having a drive-through penalty during the race. Augusto Farfus also won the Goodyear Wingfoot Award for the fastest stint average in LMGT3, which was impressive considering he hadn’t raced at COTA before. The LMGT3 class was won by the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 that started from pole.
Next up for the FIA WEC series is a six-hour race at Fuji in Japan in mid-September, followed by the eight-hour finale at Bahrain on the first weekend of November.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy BMW]
