It’s been 16 years since BMW last competed in Formula 1, then doing so as a joint manufacturer with Sauber. And we hate to be the bearers of bad news, but that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
Ahead of last weekend’s Nürburgring 24 Hours—which BMW won—its head of M Motorsport, Andreas Roos, told us: “For us, it’s important to have that road relevance with racing cars. We don’t see any links in the regulations for Formula 1, and this is why, at the moment, it suits us much better to do hypercar racing in WEC and IMSA.”
Fair dos. That road-race link is something BMW has championed for years now, stretching as far back as the M1 Procar in the late ’70s. It’s also the main reason Roos and his team do what they do.
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“Motorsport is a laboratory for us to test our sportiest road cars,” he continued. “It’s important for us to have a racing ‘pyramid’, which is why we’ve introduced the M2 Racing as an entry-level, and why we go from GT4 right the way up to hypercars. The M Hybrid V8 shares the same engine as the M5 and the XM. It’s not identical, but there are links between the hypercar and road car development.”
Ah, yes, the wonderfully kidney-grilled M Hybrid V8. Potent looking thing, but still some way off the triple-LM24-winning Ferrari 499P. If that’s going to change, there needs to be a strong shakeup to the rulebook, says Roos.
“If Ferrari had not messed it up, they’d have been first, second, and third at Le Mans this year. We are not coming to Le Mans to be fourth, fifth, or sixth. Development of the car continues, but the people who make the regulations must find the right way to balance all our cars. I don’t want to say it’s an unfair advantage to Ferrari right now, but they have a car we just cannot compete against.”
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
