Sheldon van der Linde says BMW’s breakthrough victory in the FIA World Endurance Championship in Belgium last weekend (9 May) came at the ‘perfect point’ for the German manufacturer, whose Spa-Francorchamps success has vaulted it to the top of both title tables.
A disappointing qualifying session left the two BMW M Hybrid V8s just tenth and 11th on the 17-strong grid for the six-hour race in the headlining Hypercar division, but an audacious short-fuelling strategy during the opening round of pit-stops catapulted the #20 entry piloted by van der Linde, René Rast and Robin Frijns to the front of the field.
Once in clean air, the trio produced a succession of rapid lap times to increase their advantage, and a fourth-hour Virtual Safety Car intervention played into the crew’s hands by enabling them to get back in-sync with their rivals. From that moment on, they were never headed, with the sister #15 prototype crossing the finish line not far behind in second. The result made van der Linde the series’ first South African winner, and the first African to triumph outright in FIA WEC.
“It’s a fairytale story,” mused the 26-year-old BMW factory driver. “I’m over-the-moon! Honestly, I’m so proud of the boys, who kept calm throughout and did an outstanding job. We’ve waited a long time – this is now the third year of the Hypercar programme, and we’ve been close on a few occasions. I think it came at the perfect point.
“We scored our first podium last year at Imola with the same kind of strategy, where I was in clean air at the end. Starting down the grid, we needed to do something special [at Spa], and that was what made the difference. We knew it was a risk, and if the Virtual Safety Car had come out at the beginning of my stint, we would probably have been at the back, but it really paid off in the end.
“This is my first world championship podium. These two boys next to me (Rast and Frijns) have had a lot of them already, but it’s my first, so it’s really emotional.”
It was similarly a first for Team WRT – based less than an hour up the road from Spa, close to Liège – as the Belgian outfit celebrated its maiden overall victory in FIA WEC, while BMW is the eighth marque to win a race outright since the series’ inception back in 2012.
Having been heavily updated courtesy of an ‘Evo Joker’ deployment over the winter, the M Series V8 – which had tallied just a single point from two prior outings in the Ardennes – became the seventh different model to prevail in the championship’s most recent seven rounds. What’s more, the Bavarian brand emulated the achievement of Audi, Cadillac and Rebellion by backing up its breakthrough success with the runner-up spoils for good measure.
“Both cars at the very front and all six of our drivers on the podium – it doesn’t get any better than that!” enthused Head of BMW M Motorsport, Andreas Roos, reflecting upon the company’s first major triumph in global endurance racing since the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1999. “I can only be thankful to everybody involved in the project – we can all be very proud.
“It was a big effort from the get-go when we decided to enter the Hypercar category in FIA WEC. This is a fantastic success and a huge relief after all the hard work we’ve put in over the past years.
“We have worked a lot on the Evo update, especially regarding race pace, to make the car more consistent and predictable. That was one of the keys at Spa, because as soon as we had a clear track ahead of us, we were able to set very fast lap times and pull away. The #15 drivers also did an amazing job to finish second. Congratulations to both crews. Now, let’s try to build upon this!”
“We couldn’t have dreamt of a better home race – I’m super happy and incredibly pleased for the whole team,” echoed Team Principal, Vincent Vosse. “The drivers did a perfect job, and the team was fantastic with the right strategy calls at the right time. Next up is the big highlight of the season at Le Mans, and we couldn’t be going there with a better feeling!”
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