Photo: BMW Motorsport
This year the glorious BMW M3 GTE was replaced with the Z4 GTE model in the American Le Mans Series. The new car proved to be even more successful than its predecessor in the ALMS championship, winning the second place in the GT class in its maiden year.
BMW Team RLL came in second and fourth in the final round of the championship, held at Road Atlanta, also called ‘Petit Le Mans’. The standings at the end of the race made Dirk Muller runner up in the Driver’s championship for the 2013 season.
Intermittent rain meant that the first six hours of the race were slowed down thanks to some caution periods but other than that the race was pretty much straightforward, the track remaining dry for the rest of the race.
“This was a tough, hard race. But I have to say I’m pretty happy with second and fourth. We’ve really got a deficit on the straights and that’s a killer at Road Atlanta, so to have second is really darn good. It’s a shame we couldn’t win the championship for Dirk, but P2 for him is a good consolation,” said Bobby Rahal, BMW Team RLL Principal.
“The first year with the BMW Z4 GTE was far better than the first year with the BMW M3 GT, that’s for sure, and I think if we will be allowed to use a little more power we can make it a truly great and competitive year in 2014,” he added.
“Hell of a race. I really, truly wanted to win this one. I spent the last two hours trying to catch the Falken car. They were very fast so congrats to them. I really opened everything up and drove at maximum attack. We had a very good second place and everybody knew we couldn’t do more,” said Dirk Muller after the race.
“I’m happy for the team and for BMW; we’re all P2 now in the championships. Not a bad way to end the last year of the ALMS. Thank you to the organisers of the ALMS for an amazing run and for making it possible to see such great racing, and now we look forward to a bright future,” he added.
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