A regular in the GT class at Le Mans in the seventies and eighties, by the nineties BMW featured high on the list of class winners. The Bavarian constructor provided the engines for McLaren F1 cars and the GT launched in 1992. In 1995, the McLaren GT swiped the biggest prize at Le Mans with drivers Yannick Dalmas, JJ Lehto and Masanori Sekiya - quite a feat for a road car! In the years that followed, the McLaren F1 GTR became a regular in the top five at Le Mans, with the official BMW motorsport team, partner teams such as Bigazzi or with gentleman drivers such as Sir Lindsay Owen-Jones, now chairman of the FIA Endurance Committee. In 1998, BMW launched its own chassis for the prototype class. The first year was difficult, but in 1999 Yannick Dalmas, Joachim Winkelhock and Pierluigi Martini won the race with the V12 LMR. At the time, a certain Tom Kristensen was a factory driver for BMW. He moved to Audi the following year, and the rest, as they say, is history.

After two shots at LM GTE Pro with the factory M3s in 2010 and 2011, BMW focused its efforts on American endurance, running the Z4 in the ALMS and then TUSC, with the official BMW Team RLL. The Z4 took over from the Z3 in 2002 and the road version comes as a coupé or cabriolet. The second generation, the E89, was launched in 2009. Last year the Z4 joined the European Le Mans Series in the middle of the season and rapidly made waves in the GTC class with a win for the Belgian team Marc VDS in the last round in Estoril, Portugal. The third round of this season will be held on 12 July at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. The BMW Z4 is currently in the lead with French team TDS Racing and the BMW Team MarcVDS is sixth in LM GTE, just eight points behind the Ferrari 458 Italia run by Austrian team AT Racing. Should we expect to see BMW in the World Endurance Championship, in LM P1 against Audi and Porsche? Time will tell.

Jean-Philippe Doret / ACO — Translated from French by Emma Paulay

Photo: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES, LE MANS 24 HOURS, SATURDAY 13 & SUNDAY 14 JUNE 1999. BMW powered the McLaren F1 GTR driven by Dalmas, Lehto and Sakiha to victory in 1995. Four years later, BMW won the race with the V12 LMR prototype with Martini, Dalmas and Winkelhock at the wheel.