BMW to split with Schnitzer Motorsport after over 50 years
BMW will end its relationship with the Le Mans 24 Hours-winning Schnitzer Motorsport squad after more than 50 years
The German squad, whose successes with the Bavarian marque also include victory in the 1987 World Touring Car Championship and the 2012 DTM, will not be given a works programme by BMW for 2021, Autosport has learned.
The move follows a gradual downscaling of Schnitzer's activities with BMW Motorsport since it was dropped from the DTM line-up at the end of 2016, when the marque went down from four to two teams.
Its programme in 2020 encompassed an assault on the Nurbrugring 24 Hours with a line-up of factory drivers aboard an M6 GT3 and a role in the development of the forthcoming M4 GT3.
No statement was available from BMW and team boss Herbert Schnitzer told Autosport that he was unable to comment ahead of an official announcement.
The announcement from BMW is scheduled for this afternoon.
BMW is also expected to announce that RBM will also be leaving its roster for 2021 and that its other DTM team, RMG, will lead the development of the new GT3 car, which is expected to undertake some races later next year.
The departure of the Belgian RBM team and RMG's new role appear to confirm that BMW will have no involvement in the DTM next year when the series switches from Class 1 touring car to GT3 regulations.
The marque's plans for the IMSA SportsCar Championship are not expected to be part of the announcement.
BMW has only confirmed so far that the Rahal team will contest the season-opening Daytona 24 Hours in January with the M8 GTE.
It appears likely that BMW's involvement in the IMSA series will be limited to the four enduros at Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen and Road Atlanta, as reported by Autosport last month.
BMW has already announced this week that it will be pulling out of Formula E at the end of next season, but could still supply partner team Andretti Autosport with powertrains.
PLUS: Why BMW and Audi have pulled the plug on Formula E
Bavarian-based Schnitzer was moved back into the GT arena after BMW reorganised its DTM assault for 2017.
It competed in the full ADAC GT Masters in Germany that year with a single factory M6 GT3, before expanding to two cars in 2018.
The team also contested the Nurburgring 24 Hours with the M6 in 2017-20 and the GT World Cup in Macau in 2017-19, winning the race with Augusto Farfus Jr in the middle of those three years.
Schnitzer also masterminded BMW's assault on the Intercontinental GT Challenge in 2019.
The team, established by brothers Josef and Herbert Schnitzer Sr, started competing with BMWs in the mid-1960s.
Schnitzer was at the vanguard of BMW's touring car campaigns from the early 1980s into the 1990s.
It won major domestic titles in Germany, Britain and Italy, as well as the European Touring Car Championship and the WTCC, under longtime team manager Charly Lamm (pictured above) who died in early 2019.
PLUS: The BMW game-changer that monopolised the tin-top world
The team masterminded BMW's assault on the FIA GT Championship and the Le Mans 24 Hours with the longtail version of the McLaren F1 GTR in 1997 and the oversaw the German manufacturer's victory in the French enduro in 1999 with BMW V12 LMR prototype developed by Williams.
The team moved back to touring cars in the Super 2000 era before switching to the DTM on BMW's return to the series in 2012.
Previous article
Bentley to end Continental factory GT programme at end of 2020
Next article
The high-power solution to counter a dying breed
About this article
| Series | GT |
| Teams | TF Sport |
| Author | Gary Watkins |
How Ferrari's F1 protege became a Mercedes GT prodigy
Raffaele Marciello once appeared to be Ferrari’s next Italian F1 star, but is now under the pay of its German arch-rival in GTs – and he’s very happy with his life
Why GTE's future is a conundrum with no easy answers
The convergence between the World Endurance Championship and IMSA over LMDh regulations offers a bright future for sportscar racing, but the imminent demise of IMSA's GT Le Mans class creates wider issues to which no catch-all solution exists
How Tandy joined an exclusive club of endurance legends
Victory at last year's Spa 24 Hours meant Nick Tandy had completed the unofficial sextuple crown of the world's six biggest endurance races, becoming the first Briton to do so. Ahead of his fresh start with Corvette Racing, he explains how he did it
Why a lost F1 hope is still in demand aged 65
There's a saying among retired folk that life begins at 60, but endurance specialist Alain Ferte has never used the 'R' word. Some 40 years since his crowning glory in F3, he's still a driver in demand and gunning for more 24-hour racing success this weekend
How a BTCC veteran conquered the summit in British GT
After two decades in touring cars, Rob Collard had an uphill battle to unlearn the tools needed to be quick in tin-tops and understand how to hustle a GT3 car. But he did so with aplomb to prevail alongside Sandy Mitchell amid a challenging year for the series
The high-power solution to counter a dying breed
SRO boss Stephane Ratel was worried about the disappearance of the amateur - or 'gentleman' - drivers who used to be the bedrock of GT3. So he invented a new category that brings back a familiar name from the past
The Dutch oddity that was too niche for its own good
Despite (briefly) having its own F1 arm, Spyker's period in international sportscar racing was spent mostly propping up the grid. Its C8 Laviolette GT2-R stands as one of the last underfunded factory GT efforts that never got a helping hand from BOP
How a "fragile s***box" conquered a sportscar classic
It was rare to see anything other than a Ferrari or a Porsche winning GT2 races in the mid-2000s, but TVR's victory in the 2005 Spa 1000km was all the more remarkable given it first had to last the full six hours
