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The BMW M Hybrid V8 roared onto Detroit’s ribbon of concrete with a pair of third-row grid slots and ambitions of adding another trophy to its IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar haul. Instead, the tight 100-minute sprint turned into a bruising joust where overtakes were scarce and paint was traded at every apex. When the dust settled, the #24 machine of Dries Vanthoor and Philipp Eng crossed the stripe in fifth, while the sister #25 car of Sheldon van der Linde and Marco Wittmann was shuffled back to seventh after a late-race yellow-flag infraction.
Qualifying hinted at more: Vanthoor and van der Linde locked out third and fourth on the grid, snapping Vanthoor’s incredible run of four consecutive poles but placing both hybrids in the hunt. Once the lights went green, however, Detroit’s concrete canyons left little room to deploy the V8’s pace. Early traffic pushed Vanthoor down the order, and with strategy windows compressed by a single pit stop, Eng re-joined narrowly ahead of Wittmann for a tense intra-team duel to the flag.
The GTD PRO arm saw Paul Miller Racing’s BMW M4 GT3 EVOs flash genuine speed in qualifying, only to watch fortune desert them in the race. Electrical gremlins consigned the #1 car of Madison Snow and Neil Verhagen to an afternoon of lap-counting, while Dan Harper and Max Hesse steered the #48 into podium contention before contact and a drive-through sent them tumbling to seventh.
BMW M Motorsport boss Andreas Roos conceded the Motor City was unkind, noting that the squad’s streak of poles and podiums has paused rather than ended. Drivers echoed the sentiment: Vanthoor admitted the start “wasn’t my finest”, and van der Linde, buoyed by his qualifying lap, believes the team will rebound on the flowing curves of Watkins Glen — a venue where the hybrid prototype has historically found its stride.
Detroit may have dealt a glancing blow, but the BMW M Hybrid V8 leaves the street fight with valuable points, fresh data and renewed determination to turn promise into silverware when the championship rolls on to upstate New York later this month.
