BMW has no plans to use wildcards for evolutions on its LMDh before the end of the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA SportsCar Championship seasons, motorsport boss Andreas Roos has said.
The M Hybrid V8 is currently in its second year of operation after debuting at the 24 Hours of Daytona in January 2023 alongside other LMDh competitors such as Cadillac, Acura and Porsche.
But the Dallara-chassis car has only achieved one success in IMSA so far, in last year’s Watkins Glen race, the only event in which it achieved a victory in the new GTP class.
The Bavarian brand’s WEC program with WRT, however, is still in its infancy, having expanded to the world championship in early 2024 after dedicating all its resources last year to the IMSA project with Rahal Letterman Lanigan.
All manufacturers can use up to five development wildcards over the life of an LMDh or LMH car, which can be used to make performance upgrades with hardware changes.
Peugeot was the first manufacturer to take advantage of the system with the 2024 9X8 at Imola in April, while Porsche had also thought about updating the engine of its 963 which would probably have been the first of its wildcards.
But speaking ahead of this month’s Le Mans 24 Hours, in which neither BMW scored points, Roos made it clear that the car will finish the season in its current specification.
Andreas Roos, Head of BMW Motorsport M
Photo by: BMW
“Should we use wildcards in 2024? No, not at the moment. We will certainly investigate and check which areas need improvement or where we think we can do it,” he admitted.
“But at the moment there is nothing yet that makes us say that we need a wildcard for this or that. We will certainly now check, especially after the first 24-hour race, whether there are areas where we feel we need to do something . But in general I’m still of the opinion that the cars are quite close to each other.”
Roos also believes that introducing regular updates could make it more difficult to come up with an accurate Balance of Performance system, as it relies on on-track data to equalize the speed of different cars.
“There is a BoP behind that should be able to bring the cars even closer together and that should be the approach to balance the grid. If everyone uses wildcards and develops the car, then first of all it is an expensive argument and also makes it difficult to have the BoP in the right window because then you start again from scratch.”
“We have also seen in other championships that, if the cars and things are stable enough, it is much easier to bring the cars and adapt them to the same window. So it is clear that we have to check whether there are arguments for which we can say: ‘ Ok, it’s a topic that needs to be looked at and maybe we can use a wildcard’ or if there are other ways to standardize this aspect.”
![#24 BMW Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8: Jesse Krohn, Philipp Eng](https://cdn.motorsport.com/images/mgl/YKEdX7r0/s1000/24-bmw-team-rll-bmw-m-hybrid-v.jpg)
#24 BMW Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8: Jesse Krohn, Philipp Eng
Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images
Roos had previously spoken about the possibility of BMW introducing a third car at Le Mans next year, with an additional entry potentially managed by RLL.
Porsche and Cadillac have already taken advantage of their North American crews to race three cars at Le Mans in 2023 and 2024, gaining a numerical advantage over rival manufacturers.
Roos continues to believe that this is indeed the case as an increased presence in La Sarthe, but reiterated that it must make operational sense.
“I’ve always said that it’s nice to have three cars at Le Mans, because in the past I’ve often said that one could have a technical problem, the other an accident and the third then won. But we’ll have to see.”
“It’s always nice to have multiple cars on the grid, but they also have to match completely in terms of operation. It’s not just about there being three of them, but about the car being competitive.”
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