Vincent Vosse is the Team Principal of BMW M Team WRT–which ran the BMW Hypercar program in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) over the last few years–as well as GT programs with the M4 GT3 in GT World Challenge Europe, WEC and the Intercontinental GT Challenge series. In 2026, Vosse and WRT will take on the monumental task of running the BMW M Hybrid V8 racing programs in both the FIA WEC and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, in addition to GT programs in Europe and Asia. To support the IMSA program, WRT has been busy this year hiring team personnel and setting up a race shop in Charlotte, North Carolina. Vosse has competed several times in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Spa 24 Hour and the Nürburgring 24 Hour races as a driver, so he’s not just a team owner.
We caught up with Vosse to discuss the 2026 season.
BimmerLife: You’re going to be super busy in 2026. Can you tell us about the challenges of setting up a new shop and team in the U.S. to run the IMSA program?
Vincent Vosse: It’s a huge challenge. Of course, we are used to big challenges, but this is probably the biggest one we’ve set out to achieve. There is still a lot of work to do, which I hope brings a lot of success, but it’s something very different to what we do in Europe. For WEC, we have a base in Belgium. After Le Mans, we leave our base and the cars will not be coming back until mid-November. Here (in the U.S.) you’re in your workshop between all the races since it’s a national championship, so the workshop is more important. We’re quite well-placed with our base in North Carolina.
Vosse celebrates with Kelvin van der Linde after winning the Bathurst 12 Hour. (Photo courtesy SRO)
BL: Are you hiring all new people for the IMSA program or will you be utilizing people from the WEC program in both series?
Vosse: We’ll have a mix of American people and a bit of our people from the WEC program, but it will be two teams. At the moment (interview was conducted in late October) we are fully into this process. The team is not totally complete yet. At the Rolex 24 at Daytona, we will have a hybrid version of the team – it won’t be the full IMSA team. With IMSA, the biggest race is the first race, so we will have a mix of people from both teams to make sure we have the experience from the people who have been with the program in WEC for the last two years. I would say the first race with the full IMSA team lineup will be at Sebring.
BL: Do you expect to be more successful in both FIA WEC and IMSA since you’ll have the experience from four cars instead of just two?
Vosse: Of course, if you look at the most successful team in WEC over the last few years, I would say it’s Penske (which ran teams for Porsche in both IMSA and WEC). No matter what balance of performance they have, they find a way to get to the front. I think having information from both championships as Penske does is very important, and I hope we will be able to achieve the same since we will have information from both series. Communication will be super important, of course, between our two teams.
Vosse (left) celebrates with Kelvin van der Linde (next to Vosse), Rafaelle Marciello (second from right) and Charles Weerts after winning the Suzuka 1000KM race. (Photo courtesy Gruppe C Photography)
BL: There are a couple of race weekends in 2026 where you have races in both the U.S. and Europe, so those will be especially challenging. (FIA WEC race in Imola is the same weekend as the IMSA Long Beach race, and the Spa 24 Hour race is the same weekend as the IMSA Six Hours of Watkins Glen).
Vosse: It’s unfortunate for the drivers and some of the team members. It’s two different teams, but having those two big races on the same weekends is going to be a challenge. We would prefer not to have that kind of clash, especially in our first year, but it would be worse if it was Daytona clashing with Le Mans.
BL: Do you have any aspirations to run a GT program with BMW in the U.S.?
Vosse: The GT cars are where we started and where we do the most races per year. We will be running GT programs in Europe and also the Asian Le Mans Series in 2026, but not in the U.S. We feel that we have a very ambitious program in 2026. We would love to have a GT program in the U.S. someday, but the problem we would face is the clashes with the schedules. If they keep having clashes like the Spa 24 Hour with IMSA races, it doesn’t work. At the end, no one can clash with Daytona, Sebring, Le Mans or Spa. Everyone has to organize their schedule around those races.
Vosse drove in a lot of 24-hour races over the years, including in a Ferrari 575 at Spa in 2004. (Photo courtesy SRO)
BL: I looked at your racing history and noticed that you have driven for BMW in the Spa and Nürburgring 24 Hour races, including at least one race with BMW legend Dieter Quester as a co-driver, so you also have some history as a driver with the brand.
Vosse: My races with BMW were not the most successful in my racing career, but I enjoyed racing with BMW. The history of BMW in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties was incredible. FINA was a main sponsor of BMW and was a Belgium brand, so for me it was always a goal to drive for BMW.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy BMW, SRO, Gruppe C Photography]
