STRONG SHOWING BUT NO REWARD FOR BMW M TEAM WRT AT SPA

STRONG SHOWING BUT NO REWARD FOR BMW M TEAM WRT AT SPA

10/05/2025

For its home race in the FIA World Endurance Championship, BMW M Team WRT arrived at Spa-Francorchamps with high ambitions after a promising start to the 2025 season. The Belgian squad showed competitive pace throughout the weekend and fought for victory in both Hypercar and LMGT3 classes, but a series of on-track incidents, penalties, and mechanical issues prevented the team from converting performance into results.

Race Highlights

• The #20 Shell BMW M Hybrid V8 looked set to fight for its first win of the season. Starting in P11 and steadily climbing the order, René Rast and Robin Frijns brought the car up to second place and within striking distance of the leader in the final hour. Unfortunately, a brake issue forced the car into retirement with less than 50 minutes to go, ending what had been a superb drive.
• Kevin Magnussen, in the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8, made a strong start and climbed up to P4 in the early stages. However, two drive-through penalties cost the crew valuable time and left them last in the Hypercar field. Magnussen and Raffaele Marciello fought back to finish P10.
• The #31’s race was cut short after contact with the #54 Ferrari at the Bus Stop chicane early in the second hour. The impact broke the steering of the BMW M4 GT3 EVO, forcing Yasser Shahin and his teammates to retire.
• #46, driven by Ahmad Al Harthy, Valentino Rossi, and Kelvin van der Linde, was a frontrunner for much of the race. After a strong start by Al Harthy taking the class lead, the car was handed a drive-through penalty for pitlane speeding. The crew continued to push and even recovered the time lost but ultimately had to settle for P9 in class.

Eyes on Le Mans

Despite the difficult outcome at Spa, the performance was there in both Hypercar and LMGT3. Team WRT now turns its FIA WEC attention to the biggest race of the year — the 24 Hours of Le Mans, set to take place on June 14^th and 15^th at Circuit de la Sarthe. In the meantime, the prologue for the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa shall take place next Tuesday and Wednesday while the second round of the GT World Challenge Europe - Sprint Cup is scheduled this coming weekend at Zandvoort.

Vincent VOSSE, Team Principal Team WRT: "A disappointing weekend overall. At some stages, it looked like we could fight for a podium, but in the end, that wasn’t the case. Car #20 was forced to retire due to what looks like brake issues. We will investigate further. As for Car #15, two drive-through penalties made it impossible to aim for a stronger result. Still, at times, we were there pace-wise compared to the other Hypercar competitors. That said, Ferrari had the race under control, and there wasn’t much we could do to challenge them. In LMGT3, it was also a tough outcome. Car #31 retired early after being involved in an incident, which was very disappointing. With Car #46, we maximised what we could with the pace we had, but it wasn't enough to fight for the podium. We took a strategic gamble, but unfortunately, it didn’t pay off. We’ll analyse, we’ll learn, and we’ll come back stronger.”

Augusto FARFUS, driver #31: “It’s disappointing to come away with zero points. The incident with Yasser was unfortunate and not how we wanted our race to end. The team always put in so much hard work and effort, and I wish we could reward them. Hopefully next time, at Le Mans, we will do just that.”

Valentino ROSSI, driver #46: “We finished P9. That reflects our potential this weekend, given the pace we had. It was still a good race overall: we fought hard in the beginning of the race, we gained positions and even battled for the podium. Unfortunately, a drive-through penalty set us back, and we took a strategic gamble to try and move up the order, knowing we couldn’t gain much on outright pace. In the end, it didn’t play out in our favour. We’ll keep pushing and hope to be more competitive next time!”

Kevin MAGNUSSEN, driver #15: "It was unfortunate to get the two drive–through penalties. Apart from that, we had a strong start to the race. We showed decent form, but then we were just fighting to make up for the two penalties. But it was a good effort from the whole team. The other car also showed great performance, fighting its way all up to the top. Unfortunately, there was no reward.”

Robin FRIJNS, driver #20: "I think it was an exciting race overall. The start wasn’t ideal, but we recovered well and made our way forward. Our pace was decent, even though we were not the fastest in the field, but we made smart strategy calls that kept us in the mix. On my side, there was some proper racing, with elbows out! Unfortunately, we had to retire due to a brake issue towards the end, which is a real shame as a podium was definitely within reach. But that’s racing!”