Vanthoor, Van der Linde: Double Program Aided BMW Progress
Photo: Charly Lopez/DPPI
Sheldon van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor believe the crossover of information coming from their double program in the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship has been beneficial to the BMW M Hybrid V8’s development, something which they expect to be boosted even further next year by Team WRT’s U.S. expansion.
The two drivers completed an extensive program at the wheel of BMW’s LMDh challenger across both sides of the Atlantic, with that season set to come to a close with this weekend’s WEC season finale in Bahrain.
Van der Linde drove alongside Rene Rast and Robin Frijns in WEC and formed a full season pairing with Marco Wittmann in the WeatherTech Championship, while Vanthoor had Philipp Eng as his U.S. co-driver and shared the No. 15 car with Raffaele Marciello and Kevin Magnussen in the world championship.
Vanthoor took BMW’s only victory of the season thus far as part of a 1-2 in the WeatherTech Championship round at Road America and while the Belgian admitted that the season has been “a bit of a struggle” in terms of results, he believes the combined program has had its benefits.
“To be able to combine both, I think is pretty cool,” he said. “I think it also helps me in a way of always being driving the same car, being involved in all the improvements we do on systems.
“They’re literally so many systems on these cars that that’s what it’s basically all about, having the best systems.
“To be able to always be part of that and to try to evolve as good as possible with the car and then with BMW, I think that it’s evolving me as well and helping me, but I think we do still have some work to do, but I’ve been enjoying IMSA as well.
“It’s been the first full season for me. I’ve really enjoyed it. I’m enjoying the tracks a lot, so looking forward and hopefully be able to do it next year again and hopefully have another nice feeling.”
Van der Linde gave a similar answer when asked by Sportscar365, noting that it was a target from the start to more closely align key characteristics on the car across the two championships.
“Some of the systems, for example, on energy management we use in IMSA, but we don’t need it in WEC so those things you can’t transfer,” van der Linde said.
“But the basic driver balance stuff, that really helps you. We tried to transfer [that] and that was one of the main targets of getting me and Dries to do both programs.
“To make sure that these things align in both series in both cars that they feel similar and I feel that both have learned from each other in that sense.”
BMW’s factory program is set to undergo a significant change next year as WRT, which already operates the WEC program, has been selected to replace Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing as the partner team for the WeatherTech Championship effort.
Both van der Linde and Vanthoor are confident that having the same team across both championships will bring even greater improvement to the M Hybrid V8.
The two drivers separately explained that although there already was a large amount of crossover and data sharing between the two teams, that this will effectively become completely synchronized with the Vincent Vosse-led team in charge of both programs.
“The transparency opens up from maybe 50 percent to 100 percent,” van der Linde said.
“I’m hoping that’ll make an even bigger step in terms of what we learn in WEC is what we take to IMSA and vice versa. Because I think we’re one of the only teams that still do both and that should be a real big advantage for us.
Vanthoor added: “I think it makes life a little bit easier. I think anyway, WEC and IMSA for us as BMW, RLL, and WRT was anyway quite open.
“We were always exchanging a lot of information between each other, exchanging all the things that we’ve learned, try to evolve, and push forward altogether.
“But now having it all within the same team, it’s going to make everything much, much easier. [I’m] looking forward to that.”
John Dagys contributed to this report
Source: Sports Car 365