And Then There Were Four
BMW's Watkins Glen triumph may have come on a technicality, but the maker's two IMSA GTP teams are proving they can race with anyone.
Having both of your cars involved in a total of three incidents that include hitting either a barrier or another car isn't usually part of a good day at the track.
Likewise, coming across the line second after never having finished first isn't exactly the way to announce your arrival as a championship contender.
But this year's Six Hours of Watkins Glen was no ordinary day for IMSA's top-tier GTP class, and it was certainly no ordinary race for BMW M Team Rahal Letterman Lanigan (RLL).
BMW is one of the big-name returnees to top-level sports car racing in 2023, joining Porsche in the North American IMSA series. It plans to return to the World Endurance Championship (WEC) in 2024, joining newcomers Ferrari, Porsche, and Peugeot and a few strong holdovers in what is already proving to be a hyper-competitive WEC Hypercar class, as this year's 24 Hours of Le Mans demonstrated. (See On Motorsport’s 2023 Le Mans review here.)
BMW's M Hybrid V8 program was launched in mid-2021 and didn't turn its first test laps until mid-2022--a good six months after Porsche began testing its new 963 GTP entry. It's understandable, then, that the BMW prototype's IMSA debut at Daytona in January was, as the company itself put it, a "baptism of fire."
Both cars finished the Rolex 24, but mechanical problems kept them from staying in the podium hunt all race. The No. 24 BMW came home sixth, while the No. 25 ended up ninth.
The next three races brought BMW two GTP podiums--both by the No. 25 squad--but no wins. Meanwhile, each of the other three manufacturers, IMSA top-tier prototype veterans Acura and Cadillac and returnee Porsche, visited victory lane at least once in the first four races, with Cadillac teams winning at both Sebring and Laguna Seca.
No surprise, then, that BMW arrived at New York’s iconic Watkins Glen circuit with one focus: join the other three GTP manufacturers in claiming a 2023 win.
Strong showings in the second practice--Connor De Phillippi was second fastest in the No. 25, and Augusto Farfus was third-quickest in the No. 24--suggested BMW had competitive pace among the nine-car GTP field. Qualifying was another matter as the two BMW M Hybrid V8s ended up sixth and seventh, beating one of two Acuras and one of the two Cadillacs.
But the beauty of endurance racing is the endurance part. Being fast isn't as important as being around at the end, and at Watkins Glen, that means surviving for six hours.
Alas, Team RLL's victory hopes suffered a huge hit after one corner of racing. Accelerating away from the green flag and downhill out of the Glen's sweeping first turn, Farfus spun his BMW's still-too-cool rear tires. The Brazilian-born BMW factory driver could not keep his machine pointed straight. The red, white and blue No. 24 slid across the track and slammed into the rigid metal Armco barrier. Race over.
"We knew that with the relatively low track temperatures this weekend, it would be very difficult to get the tires in the right operating window," Farfus explained. "But I believed I had done everything in the warm-up lap to have optimal grip at the start. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, and I lost control of the car during acceleration."
The No. 24's early departure left De Phillippi and teammate Nick Yelloly alone to chase the team's elusive first win.
An hour later, however, they nearly found themselves alongside their No. 24 teammates in the garage. As De Phillippi chased Sebastien Bourdais in the No. 01 Cadillac through turn 10, the pair closed quickly on a GTD entry. As Bourdais maneuvered around the GTD car, he lost grip for a moment and slowed. De Phillippi locked up his rear tires in a bid to avoid Bourdais, but smacked the Cadillac with the BMW's nose, sending the No. 01 spinning off track.
The damage required De Phillippi to pit the BMW for a nose change. The sequence dropped the No. 25 to eighth in the GTP class and 13h overall in the massive 57-car field--the race's largest since 1984.
The No. 25 team stayed focused on the big picture, methodically working its way back up through the field. With 3 hours, 40 minutes to go, the remaining BMW GTP entry was in the top five to stay.
Moments later, Porsche Team Penske--whose two cars had spent most of the afternoon fighting each other for the lead--saw its victory hopes take a blow. The No. 7 Porsche 963 went to the garage for what would prove to be two hours of work on a balky hybrid charging system.
Despite its misfortune, Team Penske still had the season's most successful GTP ride in an enviable spot. The No. 6 Porsche 963 with drivers Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet, owners of three podiums in the season's opening four races, was up front.
Varying pit-stop strategies saw four cars shuffle among the top four GTP positions for most of the next 90 minutes: the No. 25 BMW, No. 6 Porsche, No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac V-Series R, and No. 60 Meyer Shank Acura ARX-06.
With 1 hour, 15 minutes to go, the No. 31 came to pit road from the lead. A lap later, the No. 60 did the same. That put De Phillippi and the No. 25 BMW--which survived a near-spin after being tapped by the No. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini GTD Pro entry--up front for the first time all day. Within a few laps, Tandy rolled the No. 6 Porsche by the No. 31 Cadillac and into second place.
Trailing the first-place Cadillac and second-place Acura by a few seconds heading into the pit-stop sequence, the BMW and the Porsche came to pit road a few laps before the two leaders--and a few laps earlier than necessary. The "undercut" strategy, putting the No. 25 and No. 6 on fresh tires more quickly, worked. Neither the BMW nor the Porsche would drop below second place again.
De Phillippi kept the No. 25 up front until his next--and last--pit stop, with 45 minutes to go. He gave up an eight-second lead and surrendered the top spot to the No. 6 Porsche. Three laps later, Tandy brought the Porsche in for its last stop, giving up a 55-second lead over the BMW and the driver's seat to Jaminet in the process.
The pit-stop exchange left Jaminet eight seconds behind De Phillippi with 35 minutes of racing to go.
The Porsche driver got to work.
With six minutes left in the race, Jaminet had reached De Phillippi's tail. The lead pair closed quickly on two slower competitors.
With De Phillippi focused on the traffic ahead, Jaminet pounced, diving beneath the BMW and zipping past all three cars. De Phillippi fought back, but drifted out of the racing groove momentarily--enough to let Jaminet drive away.
Moments later, a massive roll-over crash by Bill Auberlin in No. 96 GTD Pro BMW brought out a full-course caution. As Auberlin walked away from his mangled car, the remaining competitors paraded around for the race's final four minutes, maintaining their positions. Jaminet crossed the line first, putting the No. 6 on the podium’s top step for the second time this season.
But while the on-track competition was over, the results were not yet set in stone. A routine post-race inspection found a problem on the No. 6 Porsche.
The car's skid block--a piece of wood in the middle of the underbody that serves as a safety device by ensuring the car sits a minimum distance above the ground--was worn too thin. IMSA said it measured "less than the permitted minimum thickness."
A more colorful Porsche statement said the skid's front, worn down by routine contact with the track, was "less than one millimeter" outside the rules, while the block's rear was "well within the legal tolerance."
The bottom line: The history books will show the No. 6 Porsche finished 57th overall at IMSA’s 2023 Watkins Glen stop, while the No. 25 BMW grabbed its first win of the new IMSA GTP era.
"It wasn't the way we wanted to win, as we prefer to win on the track and celebrate on the podium," said Yelloly, who also notched his first-ever IMSA series win. "However, we gladly accept the victory nonetheless."
The Watkins Glen triumph closed a 23-year gap between BMW prototype victories that dates back to European Le Mans Series’ Silverstone round in 2000. BMW's last IMSA prototype win came the year before, at Sebring.
The win also put the No. 25 firmly in second place in the IMSA WeatherTech season-long GTP championship battle, behind the No. 31 Cadillac. In the manufacturers' title race, BMW jumped from fourth to second, trailing Cadillac.
What else did the Glen show the racing world?
Only this: Much like over in the WEC, IMSA's new top-class battle appears to be in full swing, with none of the marquee names left behind.
REFERENCES
Porsche 963 testing—https://newsroom.porsche.com/en_US/2023/motorsport/porsche-963-lmdh-motorsport-future-31003.html
BMW “baptism of fire”—https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T0410998EN/12h-sebring:-second-race-outing-for-the-new-bmw-m-hybrid-v8?language=en
IMSA "less than the permitted minimum thickness"—https://www.imsa.com/news/2023/06/25/no-25-bmw-wins-sahlens-six-hours-of-the-glen-after-no-6-porsche-penalized-in-postrace-inspection/
Porsche penalty explanation—https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/2023/motorsports/porsche-imsa-weathertech-sportscar-championship-race-5-watkins-glen-usa-32838.html