Why BMW shouldn't be overlooked on its return to prototypes

All the talk, understandably perhaps, has been of Ferrari and Porsche. The fact that two of motorsport’s true heavyweights are going to go head to head at the Le Mans 24 Hours is tantalising. The two factories haven’t clashed for overall victory since 1970, but they are still first and third on the all-time wins list.

But there is no guarantee they will have things all their own way. Not only is Toyota already established in the Hypercar class and Cadillac (also due to arrive in 2023) winning in the IMSA SportsCar championship, but BMW is coming back.

Touring cars are the first things you think of when it comes to the Bavarian marque. Autosport voted the E30 M3 the greatest tin-top of all time in 2020 and there have been numerous titles all over the world, scored by such machines as the iconic 3.0 CSL ‘Batmobile’, E36 Super Tourers of the 1990s and the 330i M Sport that took Colin Turkington to his fourth British Touring Car crown.

Formula 1 fans of certain ages might also think of the flame-spitting Brabham-BMW turbos of the 1980s or the screaming Williams-BMWs that narrowly failed to unseat Michael Schumacher’s dominance with Ferrari during the 2000s.

But BMW’s endurance racing credentials shouldn’t be overlooked. Even as long ago as the pre-Second World War 328, BMW has been adept when it has tackled longer races. It has three times as many wins in the Spa 24 Hours as any other manufacturer and tops the Nurburgring 24 Hours chart. And it won against what was arguably the greatest Le Mans entry in recent times in 1999.

The BMW S70 V12 had proved its worth powering McLaren’s debut in the French classic in 1995, the F1 GTR finishing 1-3-4-5. In six-litre form it was the basis of BMW’s first proper sports-prototype programme. Built with Williams, the first car – the V12 LM – was a failure but the follow-up was something else.

The almost all-new V12 LMR took pole and won first time out at the 1999 Sebring 12 Hours in the hands of JJ Lehto, Tom Kristensen and Jorg Muller. It would go on to win three other American Le Mans Series races that year, narrowly missing the title, but by then had already won the Big One.

BMW has winning pedigree at Le Mans courtesy of the V12 LMR from 1999

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Toyota’s ever-popular, Group C-like GT-One and the now-infamous, ‘aerial’ Mercedes CLR attracted most of the attention at Le Mans and Toyota duly locked out the front row. But the two Schnitzer-run works V12 LMRs qualified third and sixth in a field that also included entries from Audi and Nissan. They had great race pace and were the main rivals for the Toyotas from early on.

The two fastest Toyotas hit trouble, as did the leading V12 LMR, but Joachim Winkelhock, Pierluigi Martini and Yannick Dalmas beat the third Toyota to take BMW’s first – and so far only – outright Le Mans win as a constructor. The debate about whether the Ukyo Katayama/Keiichi Tsuchiya/Toshio Suzuki GT-One would have won had it not tripped over a lapped (privateer) BMW and got a puncture could go on forever, but BMW got the job done. And it did so in only its second year (if we exclude the long-tailed McLarens in 1997) during a competitive era. Even Tom Walkinshaw Racing and Jaguar took three goes in the 1980s.

BMW knows a thing or two about motorsport politics after its time in the DTM and any touring car series in which it has had to fight against hordes of front-wheel-drive cars (pretty much every other tin-top championship)

Both Kristensen, after more than a decade in all-conquering Audis, and BMW stalwart Steve Soper still talk about the V12 LMR in enthusiastic tones. It even put up a decent defence in the ALMS in 2000 as the project wound down and Audi arrived with the R8, one of the all-time great sportscars.

The ultimate success of BMW’s new contender, the M Hybrid V8, will partly depend on how the dreaded Balance of Performance pans out between the pure-bred LMH cars (such as the Toyota and Ferrari) and the cheaper, LMP2-based LMDh machines. But BMW knows a thing or two about motorsport politics after its time in the DTM and any touring car series in which it has had to fight against hordes of front-wheel-drive cars (pretty much every other tin-top championship). Plus, there are more manufacturers on the LMDh side, and they include Porsche…

BMW also selects its partners well. WRT, which will run the car in the World Endurance Championship from 2024, has won nearly everything there is to win in GT3 with Audi and made a triumphant jump into LMP2 last year. Dallara, which is one of the approved chassis builders, hasn’t had a happy time in LMP2 (though the successful IMSA Cadillac DPi-V.R is Dallara-based) but it has taken over the non-F1 single-seater landscape, including IndyCar and F2.

Finding drivers of the right calibre will hardly be an issue and BMW is planning to contest IMSA next year, so the car should be race-proven before it gets to Le Mans in 2024.

Porsche rules the roost as endurance racing’s greatest superpower (look out for our 956/962 special in the 25 August Autosport magazine issue) and Ferrari, making its first effort in sportscar competition’s top flight since 1973, is the romantic favourite. But underestimating BMW’s Le Mans return would surely be a big mistake.

The BMW M Hybrid V8 is undergoing exhaustive testing to be ready for next January's IMSA season-opener at Daytona

Photo by: BMW AG