\n Road America. The BMW M Team WRT had a top result in sight at
\n the penultimate endurance race of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar
\n Championship (IMSA Series) season in Road America (USA), but after
\n technical issues with both BMW M Hybrid V8s, they are still waiting
\n for their first win of the year. Cooling problems dropped Marco
\n Wittmann (GER) and Philipp Eng (AUT) in the #25 car back to seventh
\n place. Sheldon van der Linde (RSA) and Dries Vanthoor (BEL) led the
\n six-hour race in the first half, but then had to retire due to brake
\n issues. They attracted attention not only with their sporting
\n performance, but also with the special design of their #24 BMW M
\n Hybrid V8: BMW M Motorsport has teamed up with Spider-Man: Brand New
\n Day to create a striking special livery for Road America.\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Van der Linde secured third place on the grid in Saturday\u2019s
\n qualifying. After the first pit stops, he took the lead, which he held
\n until the driver change to Vanthoor. However, around the halfway point
\n of the race, the tide turned. First, the #24 car lost several
\n positions during a restart, then brake issues forced the crew to
\n retire. The #25 car fought its way to the front after a difficult
\n qualifying session thanks to a bold strategy, but cooling problems
\n forced the team into a lengthy repair stop, dropping the car far back.
\n In the end, they finished seventh.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the GTD PRO class, the #1 BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Paul Miller Racing
\n suffered a similar fate. After sliding into the tyre barriers, the car
\n driven by Connor De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen (both USA) required
\n lengthy repairs and finished only eleventh in its class. In the GTD
\n category, Robby Foley, Patrick Gallagher, and Francis Selldorff (all
\n USA) finished fifth in the #96 BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Turner Motorsport.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Comments after the race:\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Andreas Roos (Head of BMW M Motorsport): \u201cOur
\n disappointment is huge. It\u2019s always very frustrating when you drop out
\n or fall back due to technical issues. But it\u2019s even more bitter when
\n you\u2019ve shown such strong pace all weekend and had a good chance to
\n fight for victory. I feel sorry for everyone involved, who are working
\n very hard but are not being rewarded with the corresponding results in
\n the IMSA Series this year. The BMW M Hybrid V8 has proven to be very
\n reliable this season. That\u2019s why we need to take a close look at what
\n caused the problems. We still have two races left \u2013 and we are
\n determined to turn things around and secure at least one win. The
\n whole crew deserves that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Vincent Vosse (Team Principal BMW M Team WRT): \u201cThis
\n was not the result we had hoped for this weekend. The start of the
\n race went very well. Sheldon was able to build a clear lead.
\n Unfortunately, we couldn\u2019t bring that home. We have good pace, but
\n that alone is not enough. We also need to finish the races without
\n mistakes and technical issues. We didn\u2019t manage that. We will analyse
\n exactly why that was and make another push for victory in Indianapolis.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Philipp Eng (#25 BMW M Hybrid V8, BMW M Team WRT, 7th place
\n GTP): \u201cIt feels like a race of missed opportunities. We had
\n two fast cars, but technical problems can always happen. That\u2019s part
\n of racing. Our car felt very good in the race and had strong pace. I
\n think we could have at least fought for a podium. Unfortunately, we
\n carried our cooling problems with us for much of the race. In the end,
\n we had no choice but to come in for repairs. That cost us two laps.
\n It\u2019s a real shame and I feel sorry for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Dries Vanthoor (#24 BMW M Hybrid V8, BMW M Team WRT, DNF):
\n \u201cWe had a great weekend up until about halfway through the
\n race. But then things started to go in the wrong direction. First, we
\n lost some time and a few positions during the pit stop, then
\n unfortunately I went off at the restart. Still, the team brought us
\n back to the front with a bold strategy, and in the IMSA Series you
\n never know if that might pay off in the end. Having to retire while
\n leading is, of course, very sad. But on this fast track, it would have
\n been too dangerous to continue with brake problems.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Road America. The BMW M Team WRT had a top result in sight at the penultimate endurance race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20955],"tags":[6213,21879,21881,25040,27532,27531],"class_list":["post-65771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bmw","tag-bmw","tag-bmw-m-motorsport","tag-customer-racing","tag-gt-racing","tag-imsa-series","tag-lmdh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}