BMW M Motorsport has confirmed the drivers piloting the M Hybrid V8 in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship (IWSC) in 2025. Aside from Formula 1 driver Kevin Magnussen, who will be new to BMW in 2025, the drivers all have previous racing experience in the M Hybrid V8.
We’ll be seeing a lot of driver crossover between WEC and IWSC, with two drivers set to compete in both series in 2025 and two of the WEC full-season drivers coming over to IWSC for the Michelin Endurance Cup races (Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen, Indianapolis, Road Atlanta).
In the US, in the IWSC with BMW M Team RLL, we’ll see Philipp Eng and Dries Vanthoor paired up in the #24 car and Marco Wittmann and Sheldon van der Linde in the #25 car. Eng is the only driver who drove for RLL in 2024 and is returning for 2025. Nick Yelloly left and went to the Meyer Shank Racing Acura program, and Connor De Phillippi and Jesse Krohn were dropped from the program. It’s uncertain whether Krohn and De Phillippi are just out of the M Hybrid V8 program or out of BMW. Paul Miller Racing will have two M4 GT3s in the GTD Pro class next year and has yet to announce drivers, so there’s a chance they could land there.
In WEC with BMW M Team WRT, Kevin Magnussen, Dries Vanthoor, and Raffaele Marciello will team up in the #15 M Hybrid V8, and Robin Frijns, René Rast, and Sheldon van der Linde will be in the #20 car. Vanthoor and van der Linde will be busy competing in both series, and there’s only one race weekend where WEC and IMSA clash. Both series are racing on the weekend of May 9th-11th, with WEC racing at Spa in Belgium and IWSC racing at Laguna Seca in California. On that weekend, the WRT team will pare down to Marciello and Magnussen in the #15 car and Frijns and Rast in the #20 car.
Kevin Magnussen and Robin Frijns will also be joining BMW M Team RLL for the IWSC Michelin Endurance Cup races as third drivers, with Magnussen driving in the #24 with Eng and Vanthoor and Frijns in the #25 with Wittmann and van der Linde. For the IWSC season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona, Raffaele Marciello will be joining Eng, Vanthoor, and Magnussen in the #24 car, and Rast will be in the #25 car with Wittmann and van der Linde. Another change from 2024 is that Augusto Farfus will no longer be a third driver in the IWSC Michelin Endurance Cup races 2024. Neither will Maxime Martin, who left BMW to pursue other opportunities.
2025 is a crucial year for the M Hybrid V8 program, which costs a huge amount of money and has largely fallen short of expectations. “We have high goals for the upcoming season with our BMW M Hybrid V8 prototypes,” said the Head of BMW M Motorsport, Andreas Roos. “To achieve these, we are striving for optimizations in all areas. For our driver line-up, this means focusing and specializing. The more time our drivers spend behind the wheel of the BMW M Hybrid V8, the better they will get to know its handling and the more feedback they can provide to our engineers. The goal is to intensify the development of the BMW M Hybrid V8 in collaboration with the specialists at the teams and at BMW M Motorsport. It also helps us in this regard that some drivers compete in both championships, thereby further improving the exchange of information.”
The first race of the 2025 season will be the Rolex 24 at Daytona on January 22nd-26th.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy BMW]
