BMW now has the “tempo to battle for wins” within the World Endurance Championship with its M Hybrid V8 LMDh, WRT staff boss Vincent Vosse believes.
Vosse made the assertion after the #15 WRT BMW shared by Marco Wittmann, Raffaele Marciello and Dries Vanthoor took M Hybrid’s first WEC Hypercar class podium with second place behind Porsche in final Sunday’s Fuji 6 Hours.
“We had the tempo to battle the Porsche and battle for the win however P2 remains to be good, we’ll take that,” Vosse advised Motorsport.com.
“We proved that we at the moment are within the combine, that we will compete.”
BMW’s Fuji efficiency, which additionally encompassed the M Hybrid’s greatest WEC qualifying efficiency with third place for Vanthoor, got here after a step ahead was made final outing at Austin earlier this month.
The perfect of the BMWs on the Circuit of The Americas, the #20 automotive shared by Rene Rast, Robin Frijns and Sheldon van der Linde, was heading in the right direction for fifth earlier than a penultimate-hour drive-through penalty after which sixth earlier than the automotive stopped a lap too late at its ultimate pit name and was penalised once more for going over its vitality allocation for the stint.
Vosse revealed that WRT and BMW had been uncertain whether or not they may comply with up on that at Fuji, a observe on which the M Hybrid had by no means beforehand raced or examined.
#15 BMW M Workforce WRT BMW M Hybrid V8: Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello, Marco Wittmann
Picture by: Andreas Beil
“There was clearly a change of observe attribute, however we confirmed right here with our greatest ends in qualifying and the race that we’re persevering with to make progress.
“We’re bettering each little factor, the staff, the automotive and the drivers’ understanding of the automotive, and the Stability of Efficiency has additionally helped us,” defined Vosse. “We weren’t the quickest right this moment, however we had been up there and we did our job.”
Vosse prompt that BMW may have received the race at Fuji however for a damaged left rear rim when Marciello was concerned in an incident with Cadillac driver Earl Bamber in hour three.
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As a result of Marciello needed to pit early handy over to Vanthoor it eliminated the strategic benefit the automotive had gained by stopping beneath the primary Digital Security Automobile that led right into a full security automotive.
Requested if BMW goes to the 2024 WEC finale in Bahrain to win the race, Vosse was non-committal.
“At the very least we’re going to Bahrain with confidence that we’re going to be someplace up there,” he mentioned.
“To say we’re going to win can be troublesome as a result of Hypercar is so aggressive now. Step after step we’re getting there, however to win every thing must be excellent and right this moment for us it wasn’t as a result of we had the damaged rim.”
