BMW's WEC future in doubt after a single year in the series

The manufacturer joined the WEC's GTE Pro class at the start of 2018 with its new M8 GTE, which is also competing in the IMSA SportsCar Championship.

While the car has enjoyed success in IMSA, and took GT Le Mans class victory in the 2019 Daytona 24 Hours, BMW sits last in the WEC GTE Pro manufacturers' standings with just a sole podium scored between the two MTEK-run M8s in five races.

Its two driver crews, Antonio Felix da Costa/Tom Blomqvist and Martin Tomczyk/Nicky Catsburg, also sit ninth and 10th in the drivers' standings.

BMW motorsport boss Jens Marquardt said as recently as last year's Shanghai WEC round that BMW was "in exactly the right spot" in GTE when he also effectively ruled out an early participation in the series' incoming hypercar class.

But Marquardt told Autosport in Bathurst this weekend that a final decision on the future of the GTE programme would not be made until after the current WEC campaign concludes at Le Mans in June.

"There are still a lot of things we have to look in to in WEC, we definitely haven't extracted the maximum performance from our package," he said.

"That's what we'll focus on with the remaining races. "Once we've wrapped up everything, that's when we're going to sit down and assess and see where we go in the future.

"For us, the fortunate situation we have that every year with all of the series is that we do the last race and then sit together and decide how we go forward.

"We don't have to do any development or anything. The car is there, the team is there, so it's easy for us."

There has been reports suggesting BMW could be interested in stepping up to IMSA's top DPi division, possibly as soon as 2020.

Marquardt added that the M8 GTE programme in IMSA is not firmed up beyond 2019. He said: "We'll race until Petit Le Mans [in October] and then sit down [to decide] afterwards."

Ford is continuing to evaluate its WEC programme as the American brand's participation beyond the end of the 2018/19 campaign remains unresolved.

A Ford Chip Ganassi Racing UK spokesperson would only say that "there's nothing to announce at the moment on our plans beyond the end of the superseason" when contacted by Autosport.

Ford's IMSA GTLM programme will run at least to the end of the 2019 season and it is thought to be interested in a DPi move.

If both BMW and Ford were to leave the WEC's GTE Pro class, it would leave Ferrari, Aston Martin and Porsche as the manufacturers racing in the category.