Inside BMW Heartbreak at Laguna Seca
We follow one race team's mission to win... and its crushing failure.
HAPPY RACE DAY! especially to Kristen Lee at Motor Trend for her oral history of the magazine Super Street that helped popularize import and JDM culture back in the ‘90s. It’s about time!
The story is part of MT’s celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and a fitting tribute to the Super Street legacy that influenced an entire generation of enthusiasts. Auto fans deserve more good storytelling like this.
Book News
In case you missed it on our Instagram account, we’re down to fewer than 100 copies left for the limited edition version of our new book with automotive photographer Larry Chen. To learn more about the Limited Edition, watch this video about printing unique prints out of his home! Then grab a copy before they’re gone.
And now, here’s this week’s feature article.
Left Out: The Luckless Saga of BMW M Team RLL
MOTORSPORT IS MEASURED IN MILLISECONDS. It’s about finding the tiniest advantage in a corner, the precise moment to step on the throttle, and minute degrees of heat in your tires. These small differences are invisible to the naked eye. Yet added up over the course of a race, they make the difference between first and last.
Heading into last weekend’s race in the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship, no one could tell you that better than BMW M Team RLL. The team fields two cars, the BMW M Hybrid V8, which compete in IMSA’s top class called GTP. Team RLL has a world-class car, daring and experienced drivers, and championship-pedigree management. It’s a dream combination.
Yet the 2025 season has not been kind. Though it entered the year with high hopes, Team RLL had yet to claim a victory in the first three races. Speed is not the issue. In fact, the team’s No. 24 car, in the hands of Belgian ace Dries Vanthoor, had qualified in pole position for all three races. The BMW started right in front, every time. But by the end, it wasn’t a BMW crossing the finish line first. It was a Porsche. In all three races, Team RLL had squandered its advantage during the race and watched as Porsche Penske Motorsport ran away with the win. In a 1-2 finish. All three times.
That meant that Team RLL entered the fourth round of the season at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in arid Monterey, Calif. determined to make good. The standings looked like this:
Porsche No. 7: 1,140 points
Porsche No. 6: 1,017 points
BMW No. 24: 875 points
Team RLL was in striking distance, and a victory could catapult them up the standings. As the sun set on Northern California following Friday’s practice session, it seemed perfectly plausible that change was in the air.
The GTP class consists of spaceship-looking racecars with serious technology on board. They boast powerful engines, assisted by hybrid battery systems for extra boost. The class debuted for the 2023 IMSA season. However the BMW entry, the M Hybrid V8, wasn’t ready then. Its debut came near the end of the 2023 season. Team RLL spent most of the 2024 season learning the car’s strengths and weaknesses.
By the end of last year, things had begun to click. The team scored a 1-2 finish in Indianapolis, and though Porsche Penske Motorsport ran away with the points title, it looked like 2025 would be a bare-knuckle fight. Team RLL was ready.
History repeated itself at Laguna Seca. Team RLL put a BMW on pole position for the fourth consecutive race in 2025, as Vanthoor again set a blazing lap that edged out Porsche by the slimmest of margins. It came down to thousands of a second:
BMW No. 24: 1:12.854
Porsche No. 6: 1:12.859
Porsche No. 7: 1:12.932
Team RLL was looking dialed. The entire GTP class of 11 total cars was separated by less than a second from first to eleventh, but it was undeniable that the BMW was fast and the No. 24 was poised to emerge victorious. The No. 25 qualified a few spots back, in sixth position. This could be their shot.
The No. 25 is driven by Marco Wittman and Sheldonvander Linde (pictured left). Along with Vandthoor, the No. 24 is co-driven by Philipp Eng (pictured right).
They’d be trusted to wring as much performance out of the BMW as possible, while limiting mistakes to a minimum. The Porsches were coming. The race at Laguna Seca is a relatively short two hours and forty minutes—essentially an all-out sprint in the world of endurance racing. So the Team RLL drivers had a tight window and no margin for error. The pressure was on.
Winning pole position meant that BMW lined up first in pitlane, followed by both Porsches. It was a familiar place for Team RLL thanks to the speed of Vandthoor. But speed was never the issue. In all three previous races, Team RLL had watched their dreams fall apart due to a variety of errors—from pit stops that took too long to unexpected stops after accidental contact.
A win at Laguna Seca would require speed. But it would also require precision, communication, clean racing and a lot of luck. Barring that, at least a yellow caution flag or two to keep the cars bunched up.
It wasn’t meant to be. Vanthoor led the No. 24 car as the green flag dropped, and kept both Porsches at bay. Team RLL even caught a little luck, as the No. 6 Porsche collided with a slower car that knocked it off the pace.
But later, with Vanthoor at the wheel, the No. 7 Porsche with Penske Motorsport all-star Felipe Nasr in the cockpit reeled in the leader and executed a thrilling outside pass in Turn 6. There was little Vanthoor could do.
BMW received no additional luck, either. The No. 6 Porsche recovered from its collision and joined its partner car at the front for a 1-2 lead. No caution flags limited their march toward the finish. Team RLL engineers and managers had to watch as their two BMW cars were pushed to mid-pack.
Later, after Vanthoor miraculously began breathing down the Porsches’ neck, it looked as though there may be a glimmer of hope. On the final lap, he saw the slimmest of gaps heading into the last turn and pulled alongside Porsche driver Nick Tandy to fight for second place. But Tandy closed the door, Vanthoor was bumped into the dirt, and Team RLL accepted that once again this was not their day.
Vanthoor managed to still finish the No. 24 car in third place. And the No. 25 followed in a strong fourth. But it’s not the same as first. Team RLL wanted their first win of the season, and the displeasure was evident on the faces of Eng and Vanthoor as they were forced to watch the Porsche teams of Penske Motorsport celebrate.
Vanthoor and Tandy would both tell reporters that their last-lap collision was nothing more than a racing incident. There was no bad blood. And yet the simmering rivalry between Team RLL and Penske Motorsport must be stirring up frustration. This fourth straight 1-2 finish, if not quite a war, is undoubtedly fueling motivation.
Team RLL hurried the No. 24 BMW straight to inspection, then quickly disassembled it to inspect for any damage from the last-lap collision. Meanwhile the No. 25 car (pictured above) sat and waited its turn, wearing the battle scars from an intense battle in the California hills.
After the race, the standings now looked like this:
Porsche No. 7: 1,490
Porsche No. 6: 1,399
BMW No. 24: 1,210
BMW No. 25: 1,137
With seven races still to go, Team RLL still faces plenty of opportunity. But you can also feel the tension. Will it ever happen? Are they simply cursed?
Time will tell. Because while laps are measured in milliseconds, seasons are measured in months. Team RLL has one of the fastest cars on the grid, and drivers who are as capable as any. So far they’ve come up short of their goals. But there’s always next time, and the Detroit Grand Prix is only a matter of weeks away.
For now, all they can do is wait.
To see more photos, follow photographer Walter Fulbright here.
In Other Racing…
Need more sports cars? The European version of IMSA, called WEC, held an absolutely epic 6 Hours of Spa in Belgium. Full highlights here.
Formula Drift took over Road Atlanta this weekend, including a wild on-track double pass between Adam LZ and Federico Sceriffo that brought the crowd to their feet. Stuff like that doesn’t happen very often in drifting. Full highlights here.
And Finally…
Worlds are colliding as two key figures from my 2023 book Cult of GT-R are joining forces. Former Nissan brand specialist—and “Father of GT-R”—Hiroshi Tamura will join TopRank Importers in a new role. A match made in JDM Heaven.
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