IMSA | Daytona, BMW focuses on the race and hopes for more reliability

The 24h of Daytona represents a good test for the BMW LMDh, which 12 months ago made its debut in the first race of the IMSA SportsCar Championship suffering from several youth problems compared to its rivals.

The official M Hybrid V8s prepared by Team RLL during the Roar test week showed good performance, working above all from a race perspective rather than on absolute qualifying performance.

Here we saw Connor De Phillippi take his #25 car to 4th place in the GTP Class just over 0″3 from the top, while Jesse Krohn only finished 8th with the #24 and with a bit of anger for a result that does not satisfy him.

“In qualifying we had the best car of the entire weekend. We are satisfied that we have taken a good step in the right direction. There is still some optimization to be done here and there, but I am happy for the team for the significantly better result than in last year”, comments De Phillippi.

“We are slowly but clearly reaching the level needed to close the gap to our rivals, the race is long and a lot can happen. We are ready.”

Krohn, on the other hand, is a little darker in the face: “This wasn't the place I wanted to end the session, I wasn't able to do a fast lap after in practice we concentrated on race pace and not on qualifying.”

“Obviously it would have been better to start further up the front, but we definitely have a better car for the race than the starting position suggests. I think we are very well prepared.”

Photo by: Art Fleischmann

#24 BMW M Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8: Jesse Krohn, Philipp Eng, Augusto Farfus, Dries Vanthoor

What matters, however, is that in the 24 Hours that will take place between Saturday and Sunday the BMWs can compete against their rivals without experiencing problems that could cut them off prematurely, as seen in 2023.

“We arrived at last year's Daytona having just finished bringing the BMW M Hybrid V8 program to life in the final quarter of 2022,” emphasizes Bobby Rahal, RLL Team Principal.

“Although I was generally satisfied with our performance, remembering that one of the cars was on the lead lap until the 22nd hour, this year we came in better prepared. If this translates into greater reliability, we can expect a very good 24h.” .