BMW racing fans will be seeing some new racing drivers competing in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship this year, and we’ll be making you more familiar with them over the next few weeks in the lead-up to the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona late this month.
First up is Dutch driver Robin Frijns. The 33-year-old Frijns is not new to BMW M Motorsport. He drove the #20 M Hybrid V8 for BMW M Team WRT in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) Hypercar class last year, driving with Sheldon van der Linde and René Rast.
Like many other pro racing drivers, Frijns first racing experience was in karting, and he got his start in single-seaters by competing in the Formula BMW Europe series in 2009 and 2010, winning the championship in 2010. He then started moving up the formula car ladder by competing in Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 and Formula Renault 3.5, winning championships in both series. His single-seater experience led him to reserve/test driver roles in Formula 1 with Sauber (2013) and Caterham (2014), and he’s been driving in the Formula E championship since 2015, most recently with Envision Racing.
Frijns won the Formula BMW Europe championship in 2010.
Frijns had a prior relationship with BMW M Team WRT before joining them for the BMW program. He raced in the Blancpain GT series with WRT in an Audi and won championships there in 2015 and 2017. He also drove an LMP2 prototype for WRT in the FIA WEC series in 2021, 2022, and 2023 before going into the BMW Hypercar program in 2024. The versatile Frijns also competed in the DTM championship with Audi from 2018 through 2020, scoring three wins and ten podiums in 2020 to finish third in the championship.
Frijns also won the Nürburgring 24-hour race in 2022, driving an Audi Sport Team Phoenix Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II. Two of his co-drivers in that car were Dries Vanthoor and Kelvin van der Linde. Vanthoor was also brought over from WRT as a BMW works driver before the 2024 season, and van der Linde (Sheldon’s older brother) was just signed as a BMW factory driver for 2025 after several years as an Audi driver.
Frijns drove in the FIA WEC championship in 2024 for BMW M Team WRT.
Frijns will drive for BMW M Team WRT again in the FIA WEC in 2025, sharing the #20 M Hybrid V8 with René Rast and Sheldon van der Linde. Here in the US, Frijns will be joining BMW M Team RLL in the #25 car at the Daytona, Sebring, and Road Atlanta races with Sheldon van der Linde and Marco Wittmann (as well as Rast at Daytona). Frijns has little to no experience racing in the US. The only race he has competed in here before was the 2018 Rolex 24 at Daytona, driving an Oreca-07 Gibson in the Prototype class.
The 2025 Rolex 24 at Daytona will be held from January 22nd to 26th, followed by the 12 Hours of Sebring in mid-March.
—David Haueter
[Photo courtesy BMW]