Rene Rast has highlighted the progress that BMW M Team WRT has made, after he qualified the #20 M Hybrid V8 into P7 for the FIA World Endurance Championship 6 Hours of Imola, compared to their P16 grid spot at the Qatar opener.
Speaking to MotorsportWeek.com after Hyperpole qualifying, he said: “[Besides] a small mistake in the last corner, probably top-five would have been possible for me… but I think we can be very happy with what we have achieved already, in the second WEC race.
“Being in the Hyperpole is obviously more than we expected after Qatar.
“I’m quite optimistic that we can stay maybe roughly in the top-10 [for the race].
“… It looks like we definitely made progress from Qatar. We were, I don’t know which position 18, 17, 16?
“And now we are P7. So we gained almost 10 positions which is a big step for us.
“Obviously, we went to testing in between Qatar and now. We fine-tuned every little detail.
“But obviously when you’re testing, you don’t know if it was positive or negative. You only have the driver feeling [and] you see the data, but you have no competition.
“I think our goal should be to stay out of trouble. No mistakes, no penalties.”
Co-driver Sheldon van der Linde qualified the #20 BMW in P16 at the Qatar 1812 km season-opener, which was the first WEC qualifying for the WRT-run BMW factory Hypercar operation.
The #20 BMW crew gained a point for finishing in 10th in Qatar, and so the #20 drivers – Rast, van der Linde and Robin Frijns – are aiming for another points scoring race.
Ferrari dominated the front in the Hypercar category, but the #20 starts between two Toyota GR010 Hybrids who were given a more forgiving Balance of Performance for the third round of 2024.
Whilst the #15 BMW was further back finishing 13th and outside of the Hyperpole threshold, the Bavarian manufacturer are aiming to capitalise tomorrow’s race at 1pm local time for a possible double-points finish.
