The IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (IWSC) traveled to the beautiful and fast Road America circuit in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin this past weekend of August 2-3, 2025, which would turn out to be a great race for BMW. In what was the first race after BMW M Motorsport announced that they would be parting ways with BMW M Team RLL after this season, the #24 and #25 M Hybrid V8 prototypes run by the team finished one-two in the GTP class. BMW also won the GTD Pro class, with Paul Miller Racing taking the win with the #1 M4 GT3 EVO.
The M Hybrid V8s were fast in qualifying, with Sheldon van der Linde putting the #25 car into second on the grid behind the pole-sitting #93 Acura of former BMW driver Nick Yelloly. Dries Vanthoor was right behind van der Linde in third in the #24 car. The two BMWs set almost identical times and were only around five-hundredths of a second behind Yelloly. In GTD Pro, the pair of Paul Miller Racing M4 GT3 EVO entries qualified fourth (#48, Dan Harper) and fifth (#1, Madison Snow). In GTD, Patrick Gallagher qualified the #96 Turner Motorsport M4 GT3 EVO in tenth.
The two hour and forty-minute race was chaotic from the start. There were two full-course cautions in the opening laps and five before the day was over. The #24 and #25 cars were running in the top five for the first part of the race but fell back after the first few caution periods. The key moment in the race came when the RLL team elected to bring both cars in to the pits with one hour to go under a green flag. That strategy played out well, because they were able to stay out when all the other GTP cars pitted during the final full course caution, putting the #24 and #25 cars first and second.
When the race went green again with 37 minutes to go, Philipp Eng took off in the lead in the #24 and built a gap to the second place #25 car driven by Marco Wittmann, which held off the hard-charging Acura driven by Renger van der Zande to make it a BMW one-two finish. It was the team’s first win since the one-two finish at Indianapolis last year and the first IMSA win for Dries Vanthoor. “The luck has not always been on our side this season, and for sure we also did many mistakes ourselves, which we need to clean up,” Vanthoor said. “Today it just worked out. When you’re in such a bad position, you can take some risks, and it worked out today. At the end, our pace was strong enough to stay in front. We were not on pole position today, but we finally executed a perfect race.”
The GTP class win was the first since Indianapolis last year.
The race was also wild in GTD Pro, with a lot of contact and penalties. Unfortunately, one of the penalties was given to the #48 Paul Miller Racing M4 GT3 EVO of Dan Harper and Max Hesse for contact with the #3 Corvette. It was a questionable call, as the two were fighting for position and the BMW had the inside line on the turn where the incident took place. There was also a very similar moment between two other cars where a penalty was not given.
Madison Snow and Neil Verhagen won the GTD Pro class.
In any case, it still ended up being a good day for Paul Miller Racing, as Neil Verhagen and Madison Snow drove the #1 car to victory. It was the first IMSA win for Verhagen, who drove with the team last year in the Endurance Cup races. “Maybe things haven’t always fallen our way, but we’ve always had a pretty competitive package,” Verhagen said. “I knew at some point it was going to come our way. To tick off the first IMSA win is very nice for me, personally. Madison has quite a few of them. It was nice to be able to get this with him.” The #48 M4 GT3 EVO of Harper and Hesse finished seventh.
Dan Harper and Max Hesse finished seventh in GTD Pro after serving a penalty.
In the GTD class, the Turner Motorsport #94 M4 GT3 EVO of Patrick Gallagher and Robby Foley finished a strong fourth with solid driving and pit work. The GTD class was won by the Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 driven by Onofrio Triarsi and Kenton Koch. Koch’s name may sound familiar, as he drives BMWs for Random Vandals Racing in both the SRO GT World Challenge and GT4 America series.
Turner Motorsport finished a solid fourth in the GTD class.
There are only three races left in the 2025 IMSA season. The GTD Pro and GTD classes will race at VIR on the weekend of August 22nd-24th. All of the classes will be back together for the six-hour race at Indianapolis on September 19th-21st, followed by the season finale Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta on October 8th-11th.
While no announcement has yet been made about the team that will replace RLL to run the M Hybrid V8s in the IMSA GTP class in 2026, everyone knows it’s going to be BMW M Team WRT, which also runs the M Hybrid V8s in the Hypercar class in the FIA World Endurance Championship. WRT has job postings up for a new race shop in Charlotte, North Carolina, which they will run the IMSA program out of. BMW M Motorsport has also reconfirmed their commitment to the IMSA GTP program, but it’s not been announced yet if they will run a full season in 2026 or just the Michelin Endurance Cup rounds.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy LAT Images]
