BMW has returned to the world-famous Circuit de la Sarthe in France, where a pair of BMW Team MTEK M8 GTEs has completed testing for the 2018 24 Hours of Le Mans. During Sunday’s one-day test, the #81 and #82 cars covered a total of 1,200 kilometres as they ran through the team’s extensive pre-event preparation plan.
These racing cars have already demonstrated their potential at the season opener in Spa-Francorchamps, and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in the USA.
Four BMW works drivers, Nick Catsburg, António Félix da Costa, Britain’s Alexander Sims and Martin Tomczyk, were on duty during the nine-hour test, while 24 Hours of Le Mans team-mates Augusto Farfus and Phillip Eng were competing in the third DTM event of the 2018 season.
BMW Team MTEK team boss, Ernest Knoors was happy with the preparations that his team made during the test, “It’s good to get our first kilometres of Le Mans under our belt. The cars ran pretty much trouble-free, apart from some minor issues that we can resolve before race week. We completed 1,200 kilometres and gathered some good info, especially tyre-wise as the track evolves. We have more work to do, but I’m pleased with today’s test.”
Alex Sims added, “I have good experience in the BMW M8 GTE, having competed in endurance races in the USA, and it felt excellent here today. I think we are going into the race week with some good data and have made progress with our set-up and we’re all looking forward to coming back next week.”
BMW will be using it’s return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans to launch the road-going version of the 8 Series Coupé over the race weekend.
