BMW announced details of its 2017 motorsports program at its annual motorsport season review event in Munich. The wide-ranging plans include a mix of new and ongoing driver assignments, competition in multiple series, and an early race debut for the new M4 GT4.
Six returning drivers will contest the DTM series with two teams. As announced earlier in the week, Team RMG and Team RBM will continue in DTM, while Team Schnitzer and Team MTEK are being reassigned. Marco Wittmann, Timo Glock, and Augusto Farfus will race for Team RMG, while Tom Blomqvist, Maxime Martin, and Bruno Spengler will drive for Team RBM.
Martin Tomczyk will move from DTM to the IMSA WeatherTech Series, where he will be paired with John Edwards in a BMW Team RLL M6 GTLM. Alexander Sims, who drove an M6 GT3 for Rowe Racing in 2016, will also move to IMSA, where he will drive with Bill Auberlen. At Daytona, Auberlen and Sims will be joined by Augusto Farfus and Bruno Spengler in the new M6 GTLM art car designed by John Baldessari. Farfus and Spengler will also run with the team in the series’ other long enduros. Kuno Wittmer and Nick Catsburg will also join Team RLL for the long enduros. Dirk Werner, who ran for Team RLL in 22016, is moving to Porsche. Plans for Lucas Luhr, who also ran with Team RLL last season, have not been announced.
BMW Team Schnitzer will contest the Nürburgring 24 Hour race along with customer teams Rowe Racing and Schubert Motorsports. Schnitzer will also run an M6 GT3 in the ADAC GT Masters Series. All three teams will run in VLN and the Blancpain GT series. The only confirmed drivers at this point are Jesse Krohn and the DTM works drivers in the Nürburgring 24.
Drivers for the previously announced Team MTEK development program for the 2018 FIA WEC car will be Martin Tomczyk, Alexander Sims and António Félix da Costa.
BMW also reconfirmed its partnership with the Amlin Andretti team in Formula E, with António Félix da Costa and Robin Frijns as drivers, noting that BMW currently plans to run a works team in the series in the 2018-2019 series.
Perhaps the biggest surprise in the announced plans was an early race debut for the much anticipated M4 GT4 customer car (pictured in test livery here); the car will run selected races in 2017, beginning with the 24 Hours of Dubai in January. Sportscar365.com reports that Schubert Motorsport will run the car, with Jörg Muller, Dirk Adorf and Ricky Collard at the controls.—Brian S Morgan
