No guarantee BMW will stay in World Endurance Championship beyond Le Mans
BMW could quit the World Endurance Championship after just a single season in the series, MN’S sister publication Autosport has learned.
The manufacturer joined the WEC’S GTE Pro class at the start of 2018 with its new M8 GTE, which is also competing in the IMSA Sportscar Championship.
While the car has enjoyed success in IMSA, and took GT Le Mans class victory in the 2019 Daytona 24 Hours, BMW sits last in the WEC GTE Pro manufacturers’ standings with just a sole podium scored between the two MTEK-RUN M8s in five races.
BMW motorsport boss Jens Marquardt said: “There are still a lot of things we have to look in to in WEC, we definitely haven’t extracted the maximum performance from our package.
“That’s what we’ll focus on with the remaining races. Once we’ve wrapped up everything, that’s when we’re going to sit down and assess and see where we go in the future.
“For us, the fortunate situation we have that every year with all of the series is that we do the last race and then sit together and decide how we go forward.
“We don’t have to do any development or anything. The car is there, the team is there, so it’s easy for us.”
Ford is also evaluating its WEC programme as the American brand’s future beyond the end of the 2018/19 campaign remains unresolved.