The all-new M6s made an impressive debut in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship series season opener, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, on January 30-31. The #25 BMW Team RLL M6 GTLM driven by Bill Auberlen, Dirk Werner, Augusto Farfus, and Bruno Spengler finished fifth in class after 24 hours of racing that featured exceptionally close competition among the cars in GTLM. In the GTD class the #97 Turner Motorsport M6 GT3 piloted by Michael Marsal, Markus Palttala, Maxime Martin, and Jesse Krohn finished sixth in class.
The second Team RLL car, the #100 M6 GTLM driven by John Edwards, Lucas Luhr, Kuno Wittmer, and Graham Rahal, crashed at the end of the front straight at 3:00 AM on Luhr’s stint after something failed in the right front end of the car. The team suspects that a brake rotor exploded. The car, which had run at or near the front of the class much of the way, was retired from the race.
The second Turner car, the #96 M6 GT3 driven by Bret Curtis, Jens Klingmann, Marco Wittmann, and Ashley Freiberg, spent time in the garage overnight, first to replace a failed gearbox, and then to repair crash damage. Freiberg did not get her first stint in the car until 2:30 Sunday morning. The car finished seventeenth in class with Klingmann at the controls.
IMSA begins its season with its Super Bowl, its longest and most prestigious race of the year. The event is a baptism of fire for teams like BMW that are breaking in new cars. BMW fared better than GTLM competitor Ford, whose GTs had a number of problems. But one of the new Ferrari 488GTEs, the car driven by Alessandro Pier Guidi, Alexandre Premat, Daniel Serra, and Memo Rojas, got by the #25 BMW for fourth in class late in the race. The GTLM cars that were evolutionary rather than new, the Corvettes and one of the 911 RSRs, led at the end. Oliver Gavin won a dramatic battle with his teammate Antonio Garcia to win the class by half a car length in the car that he shared with Tommy Milner and Marcel Fassler. Garcia’s co-drivers were Jan Magnussen, and Mike Rockenfeller. The #912 911 RSR of Earl Bamber, Frédéric Makowiecki, and Michael Christensen, finished third.
René Rast, Andy Lally, John Potter, and Marco Seefried, won the GTD class in an Audi R8 LMS GT3.
The M6 GTLMs and the M6 GT3s ran competitive times, if just a bit off those of the class winners. Both are potential winners over the course of the season. WTSC competition resumes at the 12 Hours of Sebring on March 19.—Brian S. Morgan
