Photo: BMW
For BMW the LeMans endurance races saw both great wins and disappointing runs. The 24-hour race scheduled for this year will see the ‘usual’ suspects playing to win it with Audi, Toyota, Porsche and Nissan duking it out. Is there any room for BMW in there?
According to BMW Motorsport boss Jens Marquardt, no. In a recent interview for Autosport, the man came out straight up and said that the company he represents would just be fifth in line in case it decided to start a new LMP1 project and that just doesn’t fit its philosophy.
"LMP1 is, at the moment, the big hybrid thing, and in there we wouldn't be the leader. We wouldn't even be the fast follower, we would be a slow follower now, as the fifth manufacturer joining in. What we always do at BMW is, on one side, look at what we are doing right now and really put that onto the screen - is it bringing what we want? Then you look beyond that scope and see what else is out there: you even look at Formula 1, you look at LMP, you look at Formula E, everything,” he said.
Well, BMW used to race in Formula 1 more than a decade ago and back then, their adventure started with an LMP1 project that was kickstarted via a collaboration with Williams. However, those times are long gone and we will probably never see them return.
At the moment, BMW is involved in the DTM in Europe, the Tudor United Sportscar Championship in the US and various other activities with its customized Z4 GT3 cars. For now, even if they wanted to expand, they’d probably lack the funds.
"LMP1 is, at the moment, the big hybrid thing, and in there we wouldn't be the leader. We wouldn't even be the fast follower, we would be a slow follower now, as the fifth manufacturer joining in. What we always do at BMW is, on one side, look at what we are doing right now and really put that onto the screen - is it bringing what we want? Then you look beyond that scope and see what else is out there: you even look at Formula 1, you look at LMP, you look at Formula E, everything,” he said.
Well, BMW used to race in Formula 1 more than a decade ago and back then, their adventure started with an LMP1 project that was kickstarted via a collaboration with Williams. However, those times are long gone and we will probably never see them return.
At the moment, BMW is involved in the DTM in Europe, the Tudor United Sportscar Championship in the US and various other activities with its customized Z4 GT3 cars. For now, even if they wanted to expand, they’d probably lack the funds.
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