Raffaele Marciello considers BMW WRT’s performance at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA), which hosted the sixth round of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship, showed more speed with their Hypercar.
As one of the drivers in the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8, he suggested their outing at the Lone Star Le Mans demonstrated a notable improvement with their Hypercar.
They scored eighth position by the end of the six-hour event, however from the moment the race begun, the #15 immediately joined the sibling #20 BMW as the second-best performing manufacturer in-class behind the three Ferraris after starting on the fourth row.
Marciello said: “Austin has shown that for sure we have gained speed.
“We were able to fight more this weekend. It was the first time we were able to achieve it.
“We are going in the right direction, and we have got good points to work on.
“We are improving and now let’s see what Fuji brings, even if every track is different.”
Rene Rast of the #20, whose energy conservation during his opening stints resulted in a 6% advantage over his Hypercar rivals, added:
“On the one hand, it was positive that we had the pace to drive in the top-five and even reach the top-three.
“How the race ended, however, is of course frustrating.
“Two penalties knocked us out of the points in the end. We’ll attack again in Fuji, and we hope to be just as competitive there as we have been here.”
Sheldon van der Linde served a drive-through penalty in the fifth hour for a full-course-yellow procedure.
Later, van der Linde ran in sixth place during the final 15-minutes until they were awarded with a significant 100-second stop-and-go penalty for not respecting the limit of energy per stint.
As a result, they finished in 13th place as the #15 was the only BMW out of the pair to score points having been unable to carry their strong form at the beginning of the race to the checkered flag.
Marco Wittmann, who drove the opening stints in the #15 BMW, made a driver error when he spun 180 degrees after taking too much kerb at Turn 7 which indicated the challenge of piloting through the Texan heat-induced fatigue.
BMW WRT had not been fighting protagonists in the previous five WEC rounds, exceptionally not in the competitive manner they showed at COTA.
They will aim replicate their form at the 6 Hours of Fuji on 15 September in the hope of fewer mistakes at the penultimate race of this season.
