BMW returns to Le Mans
BMW Motorsport will return to Le Mans, as part of the FIA WEC, in 2018. Making its debut will be the new BMW M8 GTE. Recently unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show, it will compete on the track ahead of the road car going on sale next year.
The last time a BMW race car featured on the grid was back in 2011, with the BMW M3 GT2. One year prior to that, the Jeff Koons’ BMW M3 GT2 Art Car had caught the eye, as it wrote the latest chapter in the story of the BMW Art Car Collection at Le Mans. Among the BMW Art Cars that had started previously at Le Mans were Alexander Calder’s BMW 3.0 CSL, the BMW 320i designed by Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol’s BMW M1. BMW Motorsport’s greatest sporting hour in Le Mans came in 1999, when Yannick Dalmas, Joachim Winkelhock and Pierluigi Martini took overall victory in a BMW V12 LMR. The McLaren F1 GTR, powered by a BMW engine, had previously triumphed at the ‘Circuit de la Sarthe’ in 1995.