BMW M Team WRT scored an impressive one-two finish in the second round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC) race at the Spa-Franchorchamps circuit in Belgium on Saturday, which was the teams home race. It was the first FIA WEC victory for BMW since entering the series with the M Hybrid V8 into the top Hypercar class, and the first overall win by BMW in an ACO-organized series since it’s win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with the V12 LMR prototype in 1999.
You would have never guessed after qualifying that the BMWs would even be in a position to win the race. Only one car, the #15 of Kevin Magnussen, Raffaele Marciello and Dries Vanthoor made it into the Hyperpole qualifying for the top 10 cars, and that car ended up tenth fastest in that session, though the top 10 cars were within less than 0.7 of each other. The #20 car of René Rast, Sheldon van der Linde and Robin Frijns qualified 11th.
FIAWEC PROLOGUE Lusail Circuit – Doha – Qatar
At the start of the six-hour race, Kevin Magnussen had a strong opening stint in the #15 car to move up to fifth place by the end of the first hour, but it was a strategy call from Team WRT that was the deciding factor in the race. In the first pit stop for the #20 car, the team decided to short-fill the fuel for a shorter pit stop, which put Rast out into the lead. The car then had great pace while running in clean air and Rast, van der Linde and Frijns were able to build up a lead and were able to maintain it during caution periods. In the final pit stops, the team decided to once again go for shorter stops by changing ride-side tires only on the #20 and giving fuel only to the #15. The strategy kept the two cars in the lead to finish one-two, despite a spin by Vanthoor in the #15.
BMW M Team WRT now leads both the driver and manufacturer points and has great momentum going into the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which is the biggest sportscar race in the world. “This is a really great story for us,” said Rast. “We’ve waited more than two years for this first win in the FIA WEC. Everyone at BMW M Motorsport and Team WRT has worked unbelievably hard for this. We were close before, and now it finally worked out. If someone had told me before the race, I wouldn’t have believed it, because we were still lacking a bit of pace in qualifying. I was stuck in traffic at first, but the team worked a miracle with its strategy and brought me to the front. With a clear track, our car just flew. This victory is something very special not only for BMW M Motorsport but also for Team WRT, after all, it’s their home race.”
Things didn’t go nearly as well for Team WRT in the LMGT3 class. Coming off a class victory in the opening race at Imola last month, the #69 M4 GT3 EVO of Dan Harper, Parker Thompson and Anthony McIntosh was given extra “success weight,” and the car was never competitive at Spa. It finished eleventh. “I really struggled from the beginning of the weekend to get the car into as good a window as we could,” said Harper. “Obviously, the success ballast from Imola was hurting, especially at Spa. It’s a very weight-sensitive track, and I think that hurt us a lot and made everything very tricky.” The #32 M4 GT3 EVO of Augusto Farfus, Sean Gelael and Darren Leung finished 14th after a collision and a subsequent penalty.
The next round of the FIA WEC is the big dance, the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France on June 13th-14th.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy BMW]
