BMW Team RLL collects further IWSC points at Virginia International Raceway.

Munich (DE), 29th August 2016. In the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race at Virgina International Raceway (US), the two BMW Team RLL BMW M6 GTLMs finished fifth and eighth. It was the number 25 BMW M6 GTLM of Bill Auberlen (US) and Dirk Werner (DE) that finished ahead of the number 100 sister car of John Edwards (US) and Lucas Luhr (DE). The leading cars completed 90 laps of the 3.27-mile, 18-turn VIR in the two-hour-and-forty-minute race that had just one full course yellow six minutes from the chequered flag. The GTLM class win went to the No. 3 Corvette.

The race for the number 100 car was compromised at the end of lap 13, after 22 minutes of running, when it lost its right rear wheel. Edwards managed to get back to the pits for four new tyres and fuel, but then received a drive through for a pit stop penalty. This dropped the car a lap down on the leaders and the team was never able to get this back. It also forced a change of strategy from two to three stops. The number 25 car with Werner the start driver stopped for fuel, tyres and driver changes on laps 30 and 61, while number 100 came in again on laps 41 and 66, again for fuel, tyres and driver changes. The incident involving a Corvette that brought the yellows out, and then another between a Porsche and Ferrari at the restart just under two minutes before the end of the race, meant that Werner was able to finish fifth.

Jay O’Connell (BMW Team RLL VP Technology):

“It was a bit of a crazy race with only that one full course yellow right at the end just bunching us up for one last lap attack under green to the finish. Car 25 ended up fifth place and survived all the various incidents. Then the other car, unfortunately, lost a wheel early on, went a lap down and couldn’t recover from that. So it was a tough, long day for us but we look forward to COTA, the next event where we will make the car better and have a better performance.”

Bill Auberlen (Number 25 BMW M6 GTLM, 5th place):

“It is disappointing that we could not fight at the front today, but we will never give up. The team is doing a great job, the BMW M6 GTLM runs perfectly but we just haven’t quite got the speed at the moment that the competition has. I am now looking forward to COTA and hope we can have more pace there.”

Dirk Werner (Number 25 BMW M6 GTLM, 5th place):

“It was a difficult race for us, as we just didn’t have the pace to run for a win. We gave it everything we had and the team did fantastic pit stops. The positive from this is Bill and I got points for P5 and this helps as we are trying to stay close to P3 in the drivers’ championship. We will keep on working to get more of the car and look forward to the next race.”

John Edwards (Number 100 BMW M6 GTLM, 8th place):

“It was a really hard race. Now we just have to regroup. We are testing this week in Austin to get ready for the next one and to figure out how we can compete again on the pace. We had such an unlucky start at the beginning of the year and this is not really what it is about, as we are here to go for podiums and wins.”

Lucas Luhr (Number 100 BMW M6 GTLM, 8th place):

“It was another very frustrating race for us in the number 100 car, but it can only get better from here. Our race was more or less over when John came in on three wheels at the beginning of the race. We do not know exactly what happened but we will analyse our data. From there on, we went a lap down but kept on pushing until the end. See you in Texas.”