The BMW Motorsport Story

A Pledge to Perform

BMW's motor sport successes embrace motorcycles, touring cars and sports cars, desert rallies, Formula 2 and Formula One. Innovative technology for sporting competition and a constant quest for new records has been part of the Company's philosophy ever since the early days and explains why the history of BMW reveals an impressive motor sport record.

Milestones from the Mille Miglia to the M1

Scoring new world records and winning new championships time and again with both aircraft engines and motorcycles, it didn't take BMW long to become a highly successful player in car racing as well. One of the Company's first international successes in sports car racing was an overall victory in the legendary Italian Mille Miglia road race (1 ,000 miles) with the BMW 328 back in 1940.

Touring car racing was initially less significant in post-war Germany, motorcycle rider Schorsch Meier bringing home countless wins and scoring many records on his BMW boxer, becoming a popular hero in the process.

In 1960 BMW celebrated another outstanding achievement in motor racing. Hans Stuck senior, the 60-year-old hill-climbing king from Grainau near Garmisch, brought home the German Hill-Climb Championship. In 1966 Hubert Hahne, driving a BMW 2000ti, became the first touring car driver to lap the northern circuit of Nurburgring in less than 10 minutes.

The BMW 2002 that helped to make Dieter Quester the European Touring Car Champion in 1968 and 1969 was the first car of its kind to feature turbocharger technology in 1969. The successful racing teams at the time were Alpina, Koepchen and Schnitzer, their best drivers including not only Quester but among others also Hans-Joachim Stuck, Toine Hezemans, Ronnie Petersen, Chris Amon, Helmut Kelleners, and later Niki Lauda.

Between 1973 and 1979 the BMW 3.0 CSL won no less than six European Touring Car Championships.

In the USA, Brian Redman and Ronnie Peterson achieved tremendous victories in 1974 and 1975 in the International Motor Sports Association Series (IMSA). And driving a Schnitzer Team BMW 320, Harald Ertl became the German Motor Racing Champion of 1978.

It was at this time, between 1973 and 1982, that BMW's four-cylinder power unit also set the standard in Formula 2 for young, up-and-coming drivers, with Jean-Pierre Jarier clinching the 1973 European Championship and Patrick Depailler, Jacques Laffite, Bruno Giacomelli, Marc Surer and Corrado Fabi following in his footsteps, in 1974, 1975, 1978, 1979 and 1982 respectively. Later, all of these drivers moved up successfully to Formula One.

In 1979 and 1980 BMW introduced an all-new idea into Formula One Grand Prix racing as a special add-on activity: the Procar Series at the European Grands Prix. In this high-class cup trophy featuring the BMW M1 road-going sports car, young talents regularly took on the fastest five drivers in Formula One qualifying.

Entering the year 1981, BMW also scored an outstanding success in an entirely different discipline, French rider Hubert Auriol winning the motorcycle category of the Paris-Dakar desert rally on his BMW. He then repeated his victory in 1983, Gaston Rahier winning the title also on a BMW in 1984 and 1985.

Formula One with shattering power

On 24 April 1980 BMW announced its entry into Formula One as a supplier of engines. Taking a standard production four-cylinder engine block, Paul Rosche built a 16-valve power unit reduced in size to 1.5 litres. Running on special fuel and featuring an exhaust gas turbocharger operating at an absolute pressure of 2.9 bar equal to an overpressure of 1.9 bar, this engine started its career with maximum output of approximately 650 bhp - and ended its career with up to 1400 bhp. Says Rosche: "We weren't able to say exactly how powerful the engine was, since our dynamometers back then didn't go beyond 1280 bhp." But whatever the maximum output of the engine was, shattering power was certainly the name of the game.

On 23 January 1982 Nelson Piquet and Riccardo Patrese started the first race of the season in Kyalami, South Africa, from the first row in Brabham BMW's first entry - only then to retire shortly afterwards on account of an accident, and, respectively, loss of oil.

On 9 May 1982, racing the new engine for its second time (fifth Grand Prix of the season), Piquet scored his first World Championship points, finishing fifth in the Belgian Grand Prix. His first outright win was on 13 June of the same year in Montreal, his first pole position on 15 August in the Austrian Grand Prix in Zeltweg.

Entering the 1983 FIA Formula One World Championship, Brabham's design wizard Gordon Murray had responded to a new technical rule remarkably quickly. Brabham's Director Bernie Ecclestone even referred to the Brabham BT 52 as the "first car of a new generation". BMW turbo power was up once again, and Piquet was indeed far ahead of the competition right from the start in the first race of the season in Rio de Janeiro. So Brazilian Nelson Piquet won his home race, where for the first time a third BMW turbo driver also made his appearance on the track together with Piquet and Patrese: Manfred Winkelhock in the ATS BMW.

World Champion after 630 days

The 1983 season was a real thriller. It took Nelson Piquet 12 races and exactly half a year before once again reaching the finish line as the winner. But Piquet kept his nerves and scored points consistently. The team perfected Murray's idea of the "planned pitstop", a calculation based on the fact that a car carrying less fuel and thus lighter in weight was significantly faster, making it worthwhile to come into the pits in order to fill up the tank. Following this strategy, Piquet came home the winner two more times - in Monza and Brands Hatch. Finishing third in the final race in Kyalami was sufficient to give him the World Championship just 630 days after the BMW power unit had made its first appearance.

In 1984, three teams were using BMW engines: Brabham, ATS and for the first time Arrows. Piquet finished fifth in the World Championship. In the course of the season Manfred Winkelhock as well as the two brothers Teo and Corrado Fabi also raced for Brabham. Starting out initially with ATS, Winkelhock had the opportunity back then to make the acquaintance of a new team-mate: Gerhard Berger, now BMW's Director of Motorsport, making his debut in Formula One. One year later Berger teamed up with Thierry Boutsen to drive an Arrows BMW, Nelson Piquet once again - for the last time - finishing the season as BMW's best driver: No 8 in the World Championship in a Brabham BMW. In 1986 Berger took over this role as the fastest driver powered by BMW, finishing 7th in the World Championship. In Mexico he had scored the last victory with a BMW four-cylinder powering a Benetton, production of BMW F1 engines ceasing at the end of 1987 - the turbo era in Formula One was over.

Apart from Formula One, Berger entered touring car races with the Schnitzer Team BMW 635 CSi coupe until 1986, winning the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps (B) in 1985 and the European Championship races in Misano (I) and Nogaro (F) in 1986, the year in which his team-mate Roberto Ravaglia brought home the European Championship.

The BMW M3 driving machine

The lean and mean successor to the 6 Series coupe made its first appearance on the race track in 1987: the BMW M3, an outstanding driving machine developing maximum output of 355 bhp from its 2.5-litre four-cylinder. In its very first year of racing, the M3 helped Italian driver Roberto Ravaglia to clinch the World Championship, then win his second European Championship one year later. In 1989 Ravaglia won the German Touring Car Championship in a BMW M3, followed by the Italian Championship in 1990 and 1991. Up to 1992, finally, BMW M3 drivers scored more than 1,500 individual wins and won more than 50 international titles.

Promoting young, up-and-coming talents in Formula racing

Since 1991 BMW and ADAC, Germany's largest motoring club, have worked together in promoting young, up-and-coming talents in Formula racing. Even 16-year-olds are thus able to drive small Formula racing cars featuring BMW motorcycle engines and transmissions in the youngsters' category. Since 1998 the series has been split up into two classes, the BMW ADAC Formula Junior Cup for beginners, the BMW Formula ADAC Championship with more demanding cars powered by engines with an extra 20 bhp or so. This is also where Ralf Schumacher, now one of the BMW WilliamsF1 drivers, gained his first experience in Formula racing back in 1993.

Two-litre touring cars: the stars of the 1990's

In the 1990's BMW once again built a touring car of the highest standard for a new category of touring car racing related more closely to regular production models: Class 2 or the two-litre class, referred to later as super touring cars or, quite simply, STW for short.

1997 the racing version of the BMW 3 Series (E36) was awarded the World Cup by FIA, the World Motorsport Federation, as the most successful touring car the world over.

From 1993 - 1998 the BMW 320i scored no less than 29 international championships, three of them in Germany: Johnny Cecotto brought home the German title in 1994 and 1998, Joachim Winkelhock in 1995. And on 14 June 1998 BMW celebrated a very special victory, a BMW 320 powered by an ultra-modern diesel engine winning the 24 Hours of Nurburgring. The winning drivers were Hans-Joachim Stuck, Christian Menzel, Marc Duez, and Andreas Bovensiepen. Never before had a diesel-powered touring car clinched an overall win in such a 24-hour race.

This triumph was BMW's 16th victory in this classic endurance race at Nurburgring ever since the first white-and-blue car brought home the winner's laurels back in 1970. The winner back then, incidentally, was also Hans-Joachim Stuck driving a BMW 2002ti at the time. Moving on to Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, BMW touring cars have won the 24hour race here no less than 21 times up to the year 1998.

Once again, BMW finished the 1998 super touring car season with a big bang, BMW Motorsport Team Schnitzer again winning the crown in STW with Johnny Cecotto at the wheel. And now BMW started to concentrate on an ambitious sports car project and, in particular, the Company's reentry into Formula One in the year 2000.

The Desert Foxes Again: Dakar Victories for BMW Motorcycles

In January 1999 the 28-year-old French BMW F 650 rider Richard Sainct was hotly pursued through the desert from Granada to Dakar for 17 long days by strong opposition from the KTM team. But he kept ahead, and after 9,062 tough kilometres crossed the line by the relatively slim margin of four minutes, nine seconds. A year later, BMW's triumph in the Paris-Dakar-Cairo Rally was fourfold - and once again the victor was Richard Sainct on BMW F 650 RR, followed across the line by BMW team mates Oscar Gallardo, Jimmy Lewis and Jean Brucy.

Marathon men - Le Mans or bust!

At exactly 16.00 on 13 June 1999 BMW scored its first overall win in the king of all 24-hour races, the classic 24 Hours of Le Mans. Following the highly successful McLaren F1 GTR fixed-head sports car powered by a BMW V12 already winning the title in 1995, a further developed, upgraded version of this engine now for the first time brought home victory in an open-top sports car. The BMW Le Mans Roadster was engineered in collaboration with WilliamsF1 in Grove. The new partnership brought home it's first success.

The Le Mans race was also the first event for BMW under the new Motorsport Directors Gerhard Berger and Dr Mario Theissen. The team itself was made up of specialists from BMW, WilliamsF1 and Schnitzer, all of them working together closely with Charly Lamm.

At the wheel of their BMW V12 LMR, winning drivers Joachim Winkelhock (D), Pierluigi Martini (I) and Yannick Dalmas (F), covered 366 laps each measuring 13.6 km or 8.4 miles.

Clearly, this was reason enough for a big party in the BMW pits, although some words of consolation were also due for Tom Kristensen (DK), JJ Lehto (FIN), and Jbrg Muller (D), the drivers of the second BMW V12 LMR which, far in the lead, had been forced to retire shortly before 12 noon on Sunday due to a loose bolt. This was after taking over the lead on Saturday afternoon at 17.29 and remaining ahead of the pack for more than 18 hours!

For 9 long hours starting shortly after 3 am in the morning, BMW had even dominated one of the best starting grids in the history of Le Mans, with BMW cars consistently keeping a one-two lead.

BMW's sports car with its 580 bhp, six-Iitre V12 engine also proved its star qualities in America. Already in March 1999 Kristensen/Lehto/Muller claimed victory in the 12 Hours of Sebring (Florida), and the Le Mans triumph was followed by a further three wins in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) - a new series governed by the same technical regulations as Le Mans.

Lehto and Muller also gleaned two victories in the 2000 ALMS, pitting their 1999 BMW against the new models of the rival teams: the racing duo won the second and third events of the season in Charlotte (USA) and Silverstone (GB).

Gearing up for a Formula One Comeback

On 8th September 1997, at the Frankfurt Motor Show, BMW announced the board's decision to return to Formula One in 2000 in partnership with WilliamsF1 after an absence of twelve years.

Paul Rosche built the BMW V1 O-cylinder and supervised the construction of the new engine plant in Munich close to BMW's Research & Development Centre.

On 1st October 1998 Gerhard Berger assumed his new post as Motorsport Director, and in April 1999 engineer Dr Mario Theissen joined him as a second Motorsport Director. In December 1998 BMW took on Jbrg Muller as a Formula One test driver.

By the summer of 1999 the team had grown to almost 200. Paul Rosche was working his successor Dr Werner Laurenz in as head of Formula One Development. Rosche, who had been building successful racing engines for BMW for 42 years, had turned 65 on April 1st and retired at the end of 1999.

On 2nd April 1999, at 9:26 hrs, BMW began circuit-testing the Formula One engine - to start with on the company's own test track in Miramas, France. The test bed was a 1998 WilliamsF1 chassis, driven by Jbrg Muller.

1 t December 1999 marked the opening chapter of the BMW WilliamsF1 Team story at Jerez in Southern Spain.

BMW Motorsport in Facts and Figures