NO Championship points for BMW M and Lamborghini

WECHyperCar

Mar 8

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Lusail (Qatar). Left: #15 BMW M Hybrid V8. Right: #63 Lamborghini SC63

The 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship season opener - Qatar 1812km - was the first WEC race for the BMW M Hybrid V8 and the first ever race for the Lamborghini SC63. Both BMW M Team WRT cars ended 12th and 16th while Lamborghini Iron Lynx places his SC63 in 15th.

Challenging weekend for BMW M Team WRT Hypercar duo

Even though, both BMW M Hybrid V8 finished out of the top 10, BMW M Team WRT collected a lot of data and finished the 10-hour race.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Lusail (Qatar). #20 and #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 during first stint.

Vincent Vosse (BMW M Team WRT Team Principal): “It was a tough weekend. In the Hypercar class, finishing P12 and P16 is not really what we were looking for but we got a lot of data and now we have plenty of work to do. It seems like Porsche has done a brilliant job during the winter and they achieved an incredible outcome this weekend.”

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Lusail (Qatar). #20 BMW M Hybrid V8

The #20 BMW M Hybrid V8 concluded the season opener in 12th place. BMW M works drivers Sheldon van der Linde, René Rast, and Robin Frijns took turns behind the wheel.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Lusail (Qatar). van der Linde takes over from Robin Frijns in #20 BMW M Hybrid V8.

Sheldon van der Linde (#20 BMW M Hybrid V8, 12th place Hypercar): “The first race of the WEC season is done. It was quite disappointing for the whole team to just miss the points in P12 with a completely clean race from outside and no real mistakes on execution. On the other hand, we have a lot more races to improve this year, with seven more events so I hope we can make some big steps on the car. We are learning a lot with BMW M Team WRT on our side and I believe that we have one of the best teams and will make significant steps. A big thanks to everyone for the hard work these last few weeks for this first race in FIA WEC and without these guys we wouldn’t be here so thank you so much.”

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Lusail (Qatar). #15 BMW M Hybrid V8.

Their teammates Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello, and Marco Wittmann finished in 16th position in the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 after the car required a brief repair in the pitbox about an hour before the end.

Raffaele Marciello (#15 BMW M Hybrid V8, 16th place Hypercar): “It was definitely a tough race. We learnt a lot during this weekend and we will keep learning. We will analyse everything, and we will try to do better at Imola because I believe that we have the potential to be better and that’s why we are here.” Source: BMW Group

New Lamborghini SC63 Hypercar makes positive debut.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Lusail (Qatar). #63 Lamborghini SC63

It was a historical weekend for Lamborghini Iron Lynx at the Lusail International Circuit. Not only did the Qatar venue note the highly-anticipated debut of the Lamborghini SC63 hybrid Hypercar, but the opening round of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship also provided the team with extremely positive feedback and great promise for the future, less than seven months after the car completed its shakedown at Vallelunga.

In addition, drivers Daniil Kvyat, Edoardo Mortara, and Mirko Bortolotti all had smooth runs and were able to battle among competitors with years of experience. In the closing stages, handling concerns made it a bit more difficult at times for the drivers to use the full potential available, but lap times were still in line with the competition.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Lusail (Qatar). Edoardo Mortara ready to go for his stint in #63 Lamborghini SC63.

Edoardo Mortara, Driver #63: “It's been a long week, and we had long hours of hard work, but in the end, we are extremely happy to have been able to finish this race, which was not an easy one for us. It was our first one in the FIA WEC, and we showed that we could compete with the others. Obviously, there are many things that we need to improve. At least in terms of reliability, we proved that we have a car that can finish the race without major issues and that, at some point, was competitive. Now we need to understand how to extract more performance out of our package. We are sure that we will have more long days ahead, but it's a fantastic project and personally, I enjoyed my first weekend in WEC with Lamborghini Iron Lynx very much.” Source: Lamborghini Iron Lynx

Hypercars post race classification