BMW’s WRT team endured a disappointing weekend at Lone Star Le Mans in the World Endurance Championship.
The Belgian team, powered by the German manufacturer, are running two cars in both the Hypercar and LMGT3 class in this year’s WEC.
In the former, BMW have struggled for consistent results, with both cars scoring points on two occasions each from the six rounds so far and sit fifth in the manufacturer’s championship.
The team have faired better in the LMGT3 class. WRT have registered three podiums, including a one-two finish in Imola, with their No. 31 car and the team sitting third in their respective standings.
However, the event at COTA proved to be a difficult one for BMW, but speaking with Crash.net, team boss Vicente Vosse took the positives from the race.
BMW team boss takes positives from a disappointing weekend at COTA
Ferrari took victory in the Hypercar class with Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman and Yifei Ye, in a weekend that was largely affected by the adjustments to the Balance of Performance.
BMW kept up with the Ferrari 499P in the early stages, but ultimately fell back. The No. 15, piloted by Raffaele Marciello, Dries Vanthoor and Marco Wittmann, finished in eighth while the second M Hybrid V8 finished 13th.
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In LMGT3, the No. 31 car managed fifth in class, but the No. 46, driven by MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi, Ahmad Al Harthy and Maxime Martin, suffered a hydraulics issue 15 minutes from the finish and retired from the race.
But Vosse is not letting the result get to him as he focused on the positives from the weekend.
“The weekend had some ups and downs,” he said.
“Of course, we are not happy with the final result but there are also some very positive things to take away.
“We were the only ones who could keep up with the Ferrari [in Hypercar] for the first half of the race and that was a very positive point. Now we have to learn how to do it until the end of the race without making any mistakes.
“But let’s be positive and focus on the next race which is in two weeks in Fuji. In LMGT3, it has been a disappointing result.
“We did what we could with car #31. We had a technical failure on car #46, which we know was a power steering issue, however we will investigate further to discover the cause of the failure.
“Our opponents finished in front of us, so we lost some points again to the two leaders. We must see how we can improve this in Fuji.”
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Toyota, Porsche and Ferrari are battling it out in the Hypercar class for the title
The 2024 WEC season is nearing its conclusion with two rounds left to go in Qatar and Bahrain.
Porsche Penske Motorsport’s No. 6 car, piloted by Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor, currently lead the drivers’ championship by 12 points having finished in the top five in all but one race this season, with three podiums and one win.
Toyota’s Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries are second with an almost identical result. The third driver of the No. 7 GR010 Hybrid, Mike Conway, did not compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and thus sits fourth in the standings.
With the Japanese manufacturer holding a narrow lead over Porsche and with Ferrari closing in behind in third, the last two races of the season will be all to play for.