Struggle. That’s the word that best describes what BMW M Team RLL has experienced this IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season prior to the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks six-hour race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Not a single podium finish for either M Hybrid V8 through the first seven races.
But what a way to break that streak.
In a week that saw the RLL offices in nearby Zionsville searched by the FBI over suspected allegations of intellectual property theft on the IndyCar side of the team, the one-two finish of Philipp Eng and Jesse Krohn leading Nick Yelloly and Connor De Phillippi to the checker for the team’s first on-track victory was a welcome relief.
“I have to tell you, given all the craziness of this week, this may rank as our greatest victory as a team,” declared team owner Bobby Rahal, who said it’s perhaps only eclipsed by his own Indianapolis 500 win in 1986. “You know, I’m so pleased for these guys who have done a great job.
“Our relationship with BMW Motorsport … these people work night and day just as we do as a team to try to get us to this position that we achieved today. I’m just so thrilled for everyone in our team and at BMW Motorsport because it’s been a tough year in a lot of respects.”
In the inaugural year of the new era of Grand Touring Prototype and the LMDh formula, the team found the podium five times with the No. 25, and De Phillippi and Yelloly finished second at Watkins Glen, putting them in position to be declared winners when the first-on-track Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 was moved to the back for excessive skid plank wear. Until Sunday, the No. 24 squad had never scored a top-three finish.
“Last year, we had a number of podiums, and I don’t know, maybe we thought it’s a little easier than it is. This year, it’s been more difficult. And to do it today … none of our competitors really had any problems and yet we were able to succeed.”
BMW M Team RLL executed the ideal endurance racing strategy – survive, make sure you’re in the top five going into the final stint, and have the pace to execute. And while they may not have had the quickest cars, they were good over a long run.
The final caution period that came with 1h15m left in the race reset any strategy at play. Every team that still had a shot at victory was in a similar boat in terms of energy. There was enough to make it the end, but not going flat out. The BMWs had made their last stops with 1h6m to go, while some of the cars behind them had made a stop later in the caution period and were in a slightly better situation. The final stint had 55m of green-flag running.
But the BMW’s had enough pace under those circumstances to get to the front after restarting second (25) and third (24). Eng in the 24 went past teammate De Phillippi shortly after the restart when De Phillippi got balked in traffic heading onto the front straight. Eng then passed Louis Delétraz in the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 in a textbook case of studying the opponent and finding a weakness. De Phillippi followed shortly thereafter.
Neither Delétraz nor Mathieu Jaminet in the No. 6 PPM 963 had much to attack the BMWs with, and the two M Hybrid V8s sailed jubilantly under the checker.
“We ended up in this amazing position to be leading the race,” said Eng. “We knew that it was energy limited, so I had to save a lot of energy to make it to the end. I knew that the cars around were in a similar position, but the team guided me very well through the whole stint. So I always knew what I had to do and how much I needed to save.
“It’s quite an emotional win, actually, because it reminded me back to the days where life was a bit tough and buying fuel for my car wasn’t so easy. It reminded me quite a lot to those times because that’s what I had to do to make it to the end of the race and eventually get us the win.”
“I was listening to it, and I had to take off the headphones because it was stressful,” added Krohn, who beame Eng’s partner in the 24 this year, replacing Augusto Farfus. “I was like, ‘I’ve done my job. Let it play out.’ There was a lot of talk about the fuel, what the competitors are doing and how much fuel we have to save if we are going to make it. It sounded like there’s no chance, but Philipp just drove on fumes.”
Krohn had indeed done his part, including several treacherous laps on slicks trying to find traction on a still-damp track. The No. 24 crew was the first to go back to dry tires as the track was drying after a long period of rain.
“They asked if I could do it. They said, ‘What do you think? Are you happy to go out on slicks?’ I was quiet for a while, and I said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ Because it really looked like it’s going to be the time for slicks.
“This played a big part of how we ended up where we did. It was probably the sketchiest six laps of my life. I just – every time I even thought about going on power, I had wheel spin and the car was almost going off. So it was super tough.
“It was the right call from the team – that saved us a pit stop. Every time we stop, there is a chance of things going wrong. So definitely the right call, and it was all on my shoulders, a lot of responsibility; but in these races in IMSA, you’ve just got to make sure that you are there in the last two hours with the car in one piece, and today we did it as a team.”
After a year of struggle, after a week when the team made headlines for the wrong reasons, Rahal barely had enough superlatives to quantify his joy.
“All these guys, us, these young drivers, BMW Motorsport, everybody has worked their butt off to have a day like today…. For our team, and I think everybody in Munich and for everybody in Zionsville who works day-in and day-out on this program, this is huge for us. Because this is – I don’t want to say retribution, but this is reward for all of the effort that everybody has put in.
“So I’m so happy. I’m so happy for these guys, for our team, for the people in Munich who bust their butts for this program.”