Daytona pole means a new dawn for BMW

The sky appears to be the limit for BMW Team RLL at this weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, after Dries Vanthoor powered the German brand to its first GTP pole position in the No. 25 M Hybrid V8.

The Belgian was masterful in the bitterly cold conditions, putting himself, full-season teammate Philipp Eng, Raffaele Marciello and new BMW signing Kevin Magnussen on the front of the grid for the opening race of the 2025 season on Saturday.

“For sure it wasn’t easy with the red flag (incidentally, caused by the sister BMW stopping on track),” Vanthoor said after qualifying. “It makes tire warming a bit more difficult for everyone. That was a big struggle for us last year, but we have been improving a lot. Then it was just about getting the lap together and trying to do the best that I could. That worked out, luckily, so I am very happy.

“We’ve been working hard. It’s nice to see that it’s working for everyone here, and also everyone back at the factory. I think everybody can be happy and proud of that, but (the pole) is a little cherry on a big cake and there’s still a big thing still to happen. That’s the race, and that can go any way.”

How much does this achievement mean ahead of a race like the Daytona 24 Hours? Unfortunately, not a lot. History certainly tells us that securing pole doesn’t guarantee anything for the twice-around-the-clock classic on the high banks. It’s a race where traditionally the performance of the front-runners doesn’t become clear until the closing stages.

Last year the Action Express Cadillac set a track record (with a lap more than a second quicker than this year’s best time in qualifying) en route to pole and finished second to the No. 7 Penske Porsche. And in fact, only once since the DPi era began in 2017 has the pole-sitting car won this race, that being the Meyer Shank Racing Acura in the GTP category’s debut in 2023.

So, while BMW’s motorsport boss Andreas Roos admits that topping the Roar Test Weekend and taking pole this afternoon means little if it doesn’t convert into a victory on Sunday, he does feel it’s a significant progress marker for the project in a wider sense.

The M Hybrid V8 program in GTP has underwhelmed all too often, with the RLL team capturing just two wins since its debut here two years ago. Back at this race back in 2023 – when the two M Hybrid V8s qualified seventh and eighth on the grid – BMW and the RLL crew were nowhere close to unlocking the potential of the car. Thankfully, a lot has changed since that week.

“Generally, to kick off the season with pole in Daytona couldn’t be much better,” he told RACER. “The work we’ve put into the project has paid off, we’ve shown that we’ve improved the car and got better and better. We were positive about the development work on the car and I think getting the first pole for the M Hybrid V8 is a nice reward.”

Beyond the obvious benefits that come with two seasons of data gathering, software development and general fine-tuning, what’s behind the uptick in form and positivity that surrounds the program ahead of its third season?

BMW has opted to shake things up in its driver roster across both IMSA and WEC, reducing the pool to eight and placing two drivers (Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde) on double duty in both championships in a bid to boost “team spirit” and power through the season efficiently.

It has also signed off its first official ‘Joker’ update on the car, which debuts here. Roos isn’t prepared to go into detail on that subject at this stage and kept his cards close to his chest when quizzed on specifics today by RACER. He did at least give some hints, though.

“Our main work on the car was understanding the car and working on drivability,” he said. “Look back to the beginning of 2023, the decision to enter Hypercar from BMW was late and we were on the back foot. The one thing you can’t buy is time, and we’ve always had to catch up to the others.

“We used the Joker for this year on the brake side, but I don’t want to be more specific because at the moment not every manufacturer is even revealing if they have taken a Joker. So I think it’s enough to say it’s on the brake side, because last year that was one of our struggles.”

Just how much of a difference will it make in practice? Roos made it clear that its aim is not to make gains in the car’s performance, it’s a refinement that should help over the course of a season and during long races to make the car more drivable and consistent.

This is normal. It’s a BoP formula, for the most part, bringing performance-focused upgrades makes little sense. Thus, the updates we are seeing made to the LMDh cars, like the Porsche and Cadillac, are relatively minor and centred around car set-up and reliability.

It’s a totally different ball game, for instance, to the days when manufacturers would develop wholesale changes for their cars year-to-year and, in some instances, race-to-race during the FIA WEC’s LMP1 Hybrid era.

“It’s about the overall package,” Roos stressed. “It’s not about finding an update that gives you half a second. From the middle of last year on we were only starting to extract what we always hoped to extract from the car. I’ve always said we don’t need a Joker as long as we are not extracting 100 per cent of what we have.”

Either way, things are looking up for Team RLL, and BMW hopes that its continued faith in the Indiana-based team as its factory service provider will pay dividends.

“We are all (under pressure),” Roos said. “We also don’t split between RLL and BMW, we are here as a factory team. We work on this as a team and we are here to win races. We want to win championships and not just be a car on the grid. Sure, the longer you are in, the more pressure you have and put on yourself to win.

“In 2023, we had some good races and results, which we didn’t see in 2024. 2024 wasn’t the season we were hoping for, especially not in the beginning, we just made too many mistakes and had too many issues. But the 1-2 victory in Indianapolis was good and it’s always a relief when you show you can win a race. Now it’s time to show we can be there at the front consistently.”