Photo: BMW
There’s been a lot of anticipation from fans of the BMW marque before the start of this year’s 12 Hours of Sebring race. The 63rd edition of the venue where the Germans made their motorsport debut in the US was not a complete failure but it wasn’t all that successful either.
John Edwards, Lucas Luhr and Jens Klingmann managed to finish fourth, narrowly missing out on the podium in their Team RLL number 24 Z4 GTLM car. The other car, the number 25 Z4 GTLM driven by Dirk Werner, Bill Auberlen and Augusto Farfus crossed the line eight.
Things could’ve been better for the number 24 BMW if the power steering wouldn’t have failed near the end stages of the race, when Lucas Luhr took over after a final full-course yellow flag that was waved just two hours before the end.
As you can imagine, with all cars all bundled together during this yellow flag, there was some rather intense driving going on at the end, providing a lot of excitement for the audience around the 3.74-mile, 17-turn circuit.
On the other hand, the number 25 car had it even worse. After five and a half hours, Dirk Werner came into the pit lane with a damaged front subframe, occupying the sixth place at that moment. The repairs took no less than 10 laps to complete, dropping the car to the last place in the GTLM category. However, thanks to some brilliant driving from Farfus, Auberlen and Werner, the guys managed to make a comeback and finish eight.
Prior to the start of the race, the winning BMW 3.0 CSL from 1975 went out on an honorary lap with Hans-Joachim Stuck (DE) at the wheel. Several members of the BMW Motorsport crew from 40 years ago followed him in two BMW M4 Convertibles.
Among them were Jochen Neerpasch (DE), the first Managing Director of BMW Motorsport GmbH, and Stuck’s 1975 team-mate, Brian Redman (GB). In addition, Stuck had the honour of serving as “Grand Marshal” for the event.
“It has been a disappointing day in many respects. The strategy was working very well on the 24 car and then we had a power steering issue at the end. We could have ended up second for sure. It was just a shame, but we ended up fourth, that is not the worst thing in the world,” said Bobby Rahal, Team Principal for BMW Team RLL.
Of course, everyone was disappointed and it’s frustrating when you do your best and the technology is failing you, robbing you of a notable result. This is the second time BMW finishes fourth, the same result being recorded at the 12 Hours of Sebring back in 2014. Hopefully, things will go better next year.
Things could’ve been better for the number 24 BMW if the power steering wouldn’t have failed near the end stages of the race, when Lucas Luhr took over after a final full-course yellow flag that was waved just two hours before the end.
As you can imagine, with all cars all bundled together during this yellow flag, there was some rather intense driving going on at the end, providing a lot of excitement for the audience around the 3.74-mile, 17-turn circuit.
On the other hand, the number 25 car had it even worse. After five and a half hours, Dirk Werner came into the pit lane with a damaged front subframe, occupying the sixth place at that moment. The repairs took no less than 10 laps to complete, dropping the car to the last place in the GTLM category. However, thanks to some brilliant driving from Farfus, Auberlen and Werner, the guys managed to make a comeback and finish eight.
Prior to the start of the race, the winning BMW 3.0 CSL from 1975 went out on an honorary lap with Hans-Joachim Stuck (DE) at the wheel. Several members of the BMW Motorsport crew from 40 years ago followed him in two BMW M4 Convertibles.
Among them were Jochen Neerpasch (DE), the first Managing Director of BMW Motorsport GmbH, and Stuck’s 1975 team-mate, Brian Redman (GB). In addition, Stuck had the honour of serving as “Grand Marshal” for the event.
“It has been a disappointing day in many respects. The strategy was working very well on the 24 car and then we had a power steering issue at the end. We could have ended up second for sure. It was just a shame, but we ended up fourth, that is not the worst thing in the world,” said Bobby Rahal, Team Principal for BMW Team RLL.
Of course, everyone was disappointed and it’s frustrating when you do your best and the technology is failing you, robbing you of a notable result. This is the second time BMW finishes fourth, the same result being recorded at the 12 Hours of Sebring back in 2014. Hopefully, things will go better next year.
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