The 24 Hours of Daytona, which is scheduled for the end of January, is awaited with particular excitement this time. Because the 2023 edition of the long-distance classic in Florida is not just the opening race of the IMSA season. It also marks the race debut of the all-new LMDh cars, developed in just a few months.
LMDh cars will be used at the 24h Daytona 2023 by four manufacturers in the revived GTP class. Acura, BMW, Cadillac and Porsche are the manufacturers. During the test drives, everyone had to contend with reliability problems. In particular, the hybrid system – developed for all LMDh cars uniformly by Bosch, Williams and Xtrac – caused concern.
“It was clear from the start that it would be a very intensive test program because we have relatively little time to prepare for the whole subject,” says BMW driver Philipp Eng. The Austrian is one of four regular drivers in BMW’s IMSA squad for the 2023 season. The car – the BMW M Hybrid V8 – is being developed by BMW in cooperation with Dallara.
Eng shares the #25 M Hybrid V8 with Augusto Farfus. At the 24h Daytona and also at the 12h Sebring in March, the duo will be supplemented by a third driver (Marco Wittmann). The second BMW prototype (start number 24) will be driven by Connor de Phillippi and Nick Yelloly in the 2023 IMSA season. They receive support from Sheldon van der Linde in the long-distance races.
Extremely short preparation time for the 24h Daytona as a racing debut
Eng describes how short the development phase for the LMDh car was by remembering the schedule: “The rollout in Varano was in July. And then it happened in quick succession. First we were testing in Europe, then the test car shipped to America.”
After testing in Barcelona in August and a few days later in Aragon (where Eng sat in the car for the first time), the first America test took place in September. At the beginning of October, the first joint LMDh test took place on the Road Atlanta race track, in which Acura and Cadillac took part alongside BMW.
What followed was a 24-hour test at Sebring in early November, a two-day test at Daytona in early December, and finally a two-day test at Austin, the latter being a BMW private test. There were long downtimes in the BMW warehouse, particularly during the Road Atlanta test and the Sebring test. The engine, transmission and last but not least the uniform hybrid system were the Achilles’ heels of the M Hybrid V8 in this phase of development.
What makes the LMDh project so challenging
“It would be wrong to say that everything is going great for us and everything is running smoothly,” admits BMW Motorsport Director Andreas Roos, referring to the test drives in the USA. However, he is not particularly surprised by the problems that have arisen.
“It’s a completely new generation of vehicles. It’s all new and things don’t always run smoothly there. That’s how it is for everyone,” says Roos, and then comes to the subject of the hybrid system: “It’s just that you have a uniform system, that has to work with different vehicle concepts and different engine concepts. That is of course a different challenge.”
“If you only develop a hybrid system specifically for your vehicle, that is of course a different challenge than developing a system for four different chassis and engine concepts. Of course, that makes it challenging,” emphasizes the BMW motorsport boss.
“Like rolling a rock up a mountain”
Maurizio Leschiutta, who heads BMW’s LMDh project as project manager, is even more explicit. He describes the development of the M Hybrid V8 “at a 12 or 13 on a scale of 1 to 10” and illustrates the challenge visually, saying: “Sometimes it feels like we’re rolling a rock up a mountain and it’s us keeps rolling down.”
In anticipation of the race debut on the last weekend of January at Daytona, Leschiutta admits: “The biggest challenge for us will be to finish the race. That is our main goal. Because before you can think about race wins, you first have to be able to to race.”
BMW Motorsport Director Roos is confident that both will succeed sooner or later. “There is a very, very close exchange between the manufacturers and the hybrid partners, from whom the standard parts come. It’s simply a matter of bringing in the entire know-how of everyone involved as quickly as possible and making the greatest possible strides,” he says .
And BMW driver Eng notes: “There was a lot of work in a very short time, also for us drivers, because you first have to understand all the systems. First of all, it’s important that the car simply covers kilometers and that you can do a lot in a short time “You can learn about it. It’s just a highly complex race car, not only in terms of the driver. The good thing is that whenever there was a problem, we understood it and were able to improve it.”
BMW makes it clear: 2023 is not a transitional year
With the BMW M Hybrid V8 entering the World Endurance Championship (WEC) and 24 Hours of Le Mans from 2024, one might think the 2023 IMSA season was conceived as a development and transition year without big sporting goals. However, there can be no question of that.
“For us, the IMSA has the same importance as the WEC,” emphasizes Roos and makes it clear: “Of course, BMW doesn’t go there just to be there. It’s not the Olympic idea, but of course we also want to win races and championships . But of course we’re not so naïve as to think we’ll win everything right from the start.”