Vanthoor, BMW Looking for Road America Repeat
Photo: Michael L. Levitt/Lumen Digital Agency/IMSA
By Dennis Krause
It’s been a year since Dries Vanthoor last tasted the champagne as a race winner in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Along with co-driver Phillipp Eng, Vanthoor stood on the top step of the podium at Elkhart Lake’s Road America after leading a BMW 1-2 finish for the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team.
Fast forward to this weekend’s Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix at Road America, Vanthoor will look to do it all over again, this time with a different co-driver and new team. Vanthoor will share the No. 24 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 with Sheldon van der Linde.
With WRT having taken over the IMSA Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) program from Rahal after last season, Vanthoor is hoping to replicate last year’s success at Road America.
“Yeah, it's one of the great tracks of the season I must say. Road America, I think we always enjoy it a lot. Going there, it's one of the coolest ones on the calendar for us. So, really looking forward to going there.
“We went testing there a couple of weeks ago. I hope at least we can have a good one. We've been having good and bad weekends throughout the season so far this year. But yeah, hopefully I think Road America, hopefully looking into last year, can maybe bring us some luck and the turning point maybe in the season for us.”
Vanthoor’s best result this season has been a third at the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona. Curiously, the BMW has tended to come alive in the second half of the season in IMSA with wins at Watkins Glen in 2023, Indianapolis in ’24 and Road America last year. More than anything else, Vanthoor chalks it up to the tracks on the back half of the schedule.
Photo: Brand Badraoui/Lumen Digital Agency/IMSA
“I didn't really look that far back to know that they always seem to do that,” Vanthoor remarked. “But looking into last year, obviously our Road America win was great and was super happy with it, with a 1-2. But we got quite lucky to get into that position, and we took a lot of risk. You get favored to win with some luck.
“I do think that the last couple of rounds suit our car more. Looking into this year, obviously, this will be something new again, considering we have an EVO package. So going into those races will be a bit unknown if it will still be the case. So, we're going to see race-by-race, and it’s difficult to say now if it will be the same as compared to a couple of years ago.
“But obviously you're going to try our best anyway to come back or to try and at least get somewhere more upfront in the championship. It’s hard to say if it will now be the same at the last couple of years. So, we're gonna have to wait and see.”
Another factor to be considered, at least for this season, is the switch from the Rahal team to WRT, the team that runs the BMW factory program in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC). The 28-year-old Belgian driver was already familiar with WRT from the WEC and says the structure of the IMSA program is now completely different.
“Obviously, it's a completely new program for us. It's a lot of new people,” Vanthoor said. “A completely new structure. We've always been used to having our structure in Europe and now we have to do a completely different structure in the U.S., which is different. Also, the way of working with people. And this takes time. Obviously, I do think we've seen some signs of it (working), which is very positive, but we've also seen already some things which aren’t really positive, which we have to work on. But I think that's also normal. I mean, you can't expect to build up – I don't know, they did it in 4 months – I think they built up the whole thing so, I don't think you can expect it to be working from the first race onwards.
“Good things take time, they always say,” Vanthoor continued. “So hopefully in some more time it will get together. I do think it is, obviously, we've got good people, and I do believe that it will get better, and we will be able to fight for victories. I do think we are. We’ve had good races already this season where we showed good pace and good strategy from the guys. So, we just have to keep working and keep making sure to get all little mistakes out of our system.”
Photo: Brandon Badraoui/Lumen Digital Agency/IMSA
With BMW’s WEC program having won two of its last three races, Vanthoor believes that success provides a morale boost to the IMSA side.
“I would hope it fires them up a bit more. And it’s better compared to the last round. I think in general, especially at WRT, we’re together; we are a team. That’s open and is very important. As a group, we find that very important. I never think that they should be down or upset. I think there’s just more desire to have a good, good result.
“Obviously, there's also a lot of interaction in between, so they are working well together. I think also the things what we've been having in life comes a lot from inside, the other way around as well. It's really a group effort and it helps a lot to improve the car. I do think it fires them up more than letting there be tension or something else like that.”
Sunday’s six-hour race is scheduled to take the green flag at 10:40 AM CDT.
Dennis Krause has spent decades covering all forms of motorsports, including over 40 Indianapolis 500s, with stints at WIBA Radio, PIT PASS - Radio’s Premier Motorsports Magazine and Motorsports Minute.