BMW's Alexander Sims to contest Blancpain Series with Rowe Racing

The Briton, who won the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award in 2008, has been placed at Rowe together with new BMW signing Philipp Eng for the team's assaults on the rebranded BGTS Sprint and Endurance Cups.

Rowe, which announced it was swapping from Mercedes to BMW for 2016 last December, has yet to confirm line-ups for it BGTS campaign with a pair of new M6 GT3s, but it is likely that Sims and Eng will share a car.

Sims, who finished on the podium in last November's Macau Formula 3 Grand Prix, told Autosport: "This is a natural progression for me - I must have proved something to BMW over the past two years for them to give me this responsibility."

Sims explained that a final decision on driver line-ups will be made after next week's official BGTS test at Paul Ricard.

"Philipp and I should be together so long as we get on with each other's favoured car balance," he said.

"If we are together, I'd like to think that we will be fighting for the championship."

The deal marks a full-time return to the international GT3 arena for Sims, who raced for the Hexis McLaren team in the Blancpain Endurance Series in 2013.

Austrian Eng, who won last year's Porsche Supercup said that he was "proud to be a part of the BMW family as well as racing in the best GT championships with Rowe".

Rowe boss boss Hans-Peter Naundorf expressed excitement at being "able to work with such talented and skilled drivers" as Sims and Eng.

"I am sure they will be a big help to get our new BMW M6 GT3 cars up to competitiveness," he said.

Sims will also contest the Nurburgring 24 Hours with BMW and has been granted permission to continue with the Barwell team in the British GT Championship in spite of its switch to Lamborghini.