motorsportnews BMW Motorsport to race in LMDh Class BMW Motorsport has announced that it is to race in the LMDh Class in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship from the 2023 season. This means it will be racing at the top of the GT tree for outright race wins at the Daytona 24H Race and similar events in the USA. BMW Motorsport recently announced that the chassis for the two prototype vehicles that will race in the IMSA series will be developed in close partnership with the world-renowned and successful motorsport manufacturer Dallara. The contract was signed in mid-September at Dallara’s headquarters in Varano de Melegari, Italy. Markus Flasch, Managing Director of BMW M GmbH said “We are very pleased to have found a partner for our LMDh project in Dallara who share our passion, professionalism and great ambition in motorsport and who, together with us, is fully committed to the goal of writing a new success story in the history of BMW M Motorsport from 2023.” He went on to add: “After talking to all the chassis partners, it was crucial for our choice that Dallara, with all their expertise and experience, absolutely wanted to work with BMW M Motorsport. The chemistry between us was right from the start. We see our relationship as a real partnership in which we fight for a common
goal: success on the racetrack.” Exciting times indeed. It’s great to see a BMW racing at the pinnacle of GT racing, once again. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to see this car be adapted for running in Europe at Le Mans and emulating the LMR V12 victory in 1999?
Wittmann so close at Spielberg At the 5th Round of the new DTM series (now run with GT3 cars), Marco Wittmann came so close to adding a win to his weekend’s results; in the first race he finished 7th. For the second round of the weekend on Sunday, Wittmann was the star in qualifying and placed his Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 on pole with an immaculate lap. He was closely followed by the Ferrari 488 GT3 of New Zealand driver Liam Lawson. At the start of Sunday’s race, Wittmann made a perfect start and easily held the lead going into the pit stops. Unfortunately, without a level playing field, issues arise. It seems that, in this season of DTM, some of the race teams’ cars have new wheel nuts that are attached to the hub of the wheel and are, therefore, much quicker to change during a pit stop. By
comparison, traditional single nut wheels have to be detached from each wheel as you change tyres, which takes longer. This wheel nut debacle lost Wittmann the race, basically. Lawson’s Ferrari has the new wheel nut system and the M6 GT3 doesn’t, so the Ferrari team were able to bring Lawson in for his pit stop right behind Wittmann knowing their stop would be shorter. Wittmann tried gallantly to pass the Ferrari on the remaining laps, but had to settle for 2nd place in the end. This is another issue that has been brewing up since the first race of the season, with the teams and DTM officials in crisis talks to solve this problem. It’s actually quite easy, make everyone use the same wheel nuts.
Wittmann held onto first place at the start of the second race after qualifying on pole. He comfortably held onto the top spot until the pit stop tyre change when the 2nd placed Ferrari 488 GT3 took his place in the lead until the chequered flag
14 BMW Car Club Magazine October 2021
www.bmwcarclubgb.uk
