WEC | BMW confident that it has resolved the problems it had at Daytona

The Bavarian manufacturer is undertaking its biggest closed-wheel racing program since the V12 LMR last raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1999, when it won the race with Yannick Dalmas, Pierluigi Martini and Joachim Winkelhock.

But the German manufacturer enters this weekend's 1812 Km of Qatar with a troubled experience in the stars and stripes event of the IMSA SportsCar Championship in Florida, where the best of the M Hybrid V8s concluded the race with 13 laps late, in seventh place.

However, BMW does not see the Daytona result as a concern for the start of its WEC programme, having done a significant amount of work to resolve the issues of its Dallara-chassis LMDh which debuted in IMSA last year.

In addition to the efforts made at its headquarters, BMW also accumulated a number of laps with the car in collaboration with WEC partner Team WRT, including in a 24-hour test in Spain, in order to be in the best possible shape for the 10h appointment at the Losail International Circuit.

Speaking to Motorsport.com on Wednesday, BMW Motorsport boss Andreas Roos expressed optimism about the car's reliability for its first year of WEC competition.

“The car had the speed to get on the podium, but we had reliability problems – he declared – This has been our top priority in the last few days, from Daytona to today, to attack and resolve them.

“We are confident that what happened in Daytona should not happen here, but you never know. But this is certainly the highest goal, because in the end we do endurance racing and, as they say, first you have to finish , then come first.”

“That's why reliability is always an important issue and that's what we mainly work on, to make sure the cars are reliable.”

BMW had a brief stint leading at Daytona, but its hopes of a major result dashed when both cars run by the RLL team were hit by technical problems in quick succession just before dawn.

The #25 BMW M Hybrid, which led a number of laps with three-time DTM champion René Rast at the wheel, lost significant time due to a leak in the gearbox radiator, while its #24 twin stopped on the track due to an electrical problem and was towed to the pits.

Dries Vanthoor, who was driving the #24 BMW when it stalled at International Speedway, echoed Roos' response about BMW's efforts to make the car more reliable.

“We had a few setbacks, but it was the second 24-hour race for the car,” the Belgian told Motorsport.com. “Of course we had a few setbacks, but in Munich they took it quickly and did their homework. and they've already made some improvements to prevent this from happening again. So it should be fine.”

Sheldon van der Linde, who will join his DTM teammate Rast and Robin Frijns in the #20 WEC car this year, said BMW's progress in terms of reliability allows it to focus on improving the car performance.

“We have done a lot of testing – the South African told Motorsport.com – We went to Aragon for a 24 hour endurance test in the last month, which went very well. We managed to carry it out almost without problems. We did a lot of testing between IMSA and WEC, especially with WRT.”

“So in terms of testing we've done a lot of kilometers with the car, which is important. Reliability is the first step, once that's sorted out, which I think it is now, we can work on the performance.”

Rast was more cautious in drawing conclusions about the car's reliability, saying it won't be clear whether BMW's work will bear fruit until the end of the Qatar weekend.

“Obviously, reliability-wise, we've had some issues. We've been trying to fix them. We've done a couple of days of testing and hopefully we've fixed them, but we don't know. We'll see in a couple of days if the car will actually work without any problems,” he told Motorsport.com.

However, when asked if he had any concerns about the Qatar race, which is now the second longest event on the calendar after Le Mans, he replied: “I hope not. Obviously it's longer, but the car was built to resist the 24 hours of Le Mans, so let's hope it resists for 10 hours.”