BMW was late to the party, announcing it would take part in global prototype racing midway through 2021. It took some short cuts to ready the car for the opening race of the season, at Daytona in January 2023, after half a year of testing. Notably, these included using the Dallara chassis that was also destined for use by Cadillac, a modified 4.0-litre V8 engine from its DTM programme, plus the spec hybrid system and battery that are mandatory under LMDh regulations.
The M Hybrid V8 hit the track for the first time mid-2022, but the scale of the job to get the car up to speed against its opposition was huge. There were issues with the development of the hybrid system that held up proceedings for all competing manufacturers and, even once these were sorted, the software war being waged in prototype racing today remains a performance differentiator. As one driver put it, he has yet to see anyone put together an entire good racing weekend.
‘We were in the loop of the [chassis] development from day one’
Valentino Conti, head of track engineering at BMW M Motorsport
BMW’s weaknesses are primarily those of reliability, notably of the electronic systems
