The final race of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) season, the 8 Hours of Bahrain, was another disappointing result in a challenging season for BMW M Team WRT.
In the three practice sessions leading up to qualifying, a BMW M Hybrid V8 only cracked the top 10 once in the Hypercar class, with the #15 car of Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello and Kevin Magnussen in tenth in practice three. The pair of M4 GT3 EVO entries showed some speed in the LMGT3 class, with the #31 entry of Yasser Shahin, Timur Boguslavskiy and Augusto Farfus fourth fastest in practice one.
The #15 M Hybrid V8 had a loose wheel and was forced to retire.
In qualifying, both M4 GT3 EVO entries made it into the “Hyperpole” qualifying round to the ten fastest cars in the initial qualifying session and ultimately qualified in fifth (#31) and ninth (#46), with the pole going to the #78 Lexus. The #15 M Hybrid V8 made it into the Hyperpole session for the Hypercar class, and qualified 10th, around 1.3 seconds off the pole time of the #7 Toyota. The #20 M Hybrid V8 of René Rast, Robin Frijns and Sheldon van der Linde qualified in 16th.
In the race, the M Hybrid V8 cars didn’t have the pace to compete with the top cars. The #20 car showed some promise by moving up from 16th to finish in eighth, but the #15 car had to retire with a loose right rear wheel. In LMGT3, the pair of M4 GT3 EVO cars finished in seventh (#31) and 15th (#46). “Overall, it has been a disappointing weekend,” said WRT Team Principal Vincent Vosse. “When you are starting the season the way we did, you expect something different, but unfortunately, it did not go that way. We have a lot of work ahead of us in the Hypercar class to improve for next year. In LMGT3, we just did what we could. We were unlucky with the last safety car, otherwise we would have fought for P5. But yes, we are not racing to fight for P5. I hope that next year we can fight at the very front.”
The #31 M4 GT3 EVO finished seventh in the Bahrain finale.
Toyota had a one-two finish in the Hypercar class in Bahrain, but third and fourth place finishes by Ferrari were enough to clinch the drivers, team and manufacturers championships. A BMW only had one podium finish in the Hypercar class in the entire season, with a second place at Imola. In LMGT3, #46 M4 GT3 EVO drivers Kelvin van der Linde, Valentino Rossi and Ahmad Al Harthy were the highest placed BMW drivers in eighth place in Bahrain, with Porsche winning the championships. BMW had four podium finishes on the season in LMGT3, but no wins.
The #46 M4 GT3 EVO finished fifteenth.
There are some notable changes coming to FIA WEC for 2026. BMW M Team WRT will be back in the Hypercar class with a revised M Hybrid V8, but Porsche is pulling out of the WEC to focus their prototype racing effort entirely on the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. American driver Anthony McIntosh and Canadian Parker Thompson (who have previously raced in IMSA) are set to campaign an M4 GT3 EVO for WRT next year. Thompson was one of the fastest drivers in the IMSA GTD class with Lexus and tested one of WRT’s M4 GT3 EVOs at Road Atlanta in late September.
The first FIA WEC race of the season takes place at Qatar on March 26th-29th.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy BMW]