Vincent Vosse, boss of Team WRT, described it as “an honour” to selected media including Motorsport Week about fronting BMW’s first top class return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans since 1999.
“Well it’s an honor of course,” he said before the opening free practice session.
“[As] you can imagine, I’m a very, very passionate guy about motorsport and you can imagine when I create the team to win races in a championship, and then to win championships, and then to win a bigger championship, and then to win let’s say Macau or Nürburgring 24h or WEC in LMP2.
“I am with great people, I am surrounded by great people, but representing a manufacturer in Le Mans, what else can you ask?
“I mean, and we are representing a manufacturer in two categories… It’s definitely come a long way from the days of an upstart team in the infancy of GT3 to now this almost racing empire across both of the WEC’s big classes representing BMW at this stage.”
BMW’s only stars took place in 1999 with the LMP900 regulations and two LMR V12s, the #15-winning car which was driven to victory by Yannick Dalmas, Pierluigi Martini and Joachim Winkelhock.
BMW’s current roster of FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar drivers have a substantial combination of experience in sportscar racing with WRT, and so the Bavarian make will seek their second Le Mans win during their debut WEC season.
As a multiple championship-winning outfit, they entered the endurance prototype scene with an LMP2 programme in 2021 after exiting the DTM as they announced intentions for an LMDh project.
During 2021, they scored the first two race wins in the European Le Mans Series before winning the LMP2 title in the WEC additionally.
They finished 1-2 on their Le Mans debut, despite the drama when the #41 Oreca 07 driven by Robert Kubica came to a stop on the final lap in which these circumstances gifted the win to the sibling #31 Oreca.
Having experienced and conquered the notoriously competitive LMP2 class, BMW WRT find themselves competing for the overall Le Mans glory and the honours in LMGT3.
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