– Building a championship-level sports car program from scratch within four months is a huge task. Dries Vanthoor helps steer BMW’s GTP project in the top class of the IMSA SportsCar Championship. For the ongoing 2026 season, WRT has entered two BMW M Hybrid V8s on a full-time basis.
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Vanthoor, who is in his second full IMSA season, is at the center of a major change for BMW. After collaborating with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) as a factory partner, which brought three podiums and a win (Elkhart Lake) last season, BMW has teamed up with WRT for 2026.
WRT is the team with which BMW already competes in the Hypercar class of the World Endurance Championship (WEC). And it is the team with which Vanthoor himself has a long shared history. In the IMSA series, the newly formed team immediately made a mark with a podium at the season opener, the 24h Daytona. But to turn the rapid debut into long-term dominance, more is needed.
“It is a completely new program for us,” says Vanthoor. “There are many new people, a completely new structure. We were always used to having our structure in Europe. Now we have to build a completely different structure in the USA, which is an adjustment. The way of working, that is, the collaboration with the people, is also different. And that takes time.”
“I do believe we have seen some signs that it works. That is of course positive. But we have also seen some things that are not so positive and that we need to work on,” says Vanthoor.
“I think that is also normal. You can’t expect to just build it like that. They managed to build the whole thing in four months. I don’t think you can expect everything to work perfectly from the first race.”
Despite the difficulties of completely rebuilding the IMSA program from the ground up, speed and execution have already been demonstrated at important races this year. “They always say good things take time,” notes Vanthoor, who won the overall victory at the 6h Sao Paulo WEC race with WRT in July.
Looking ahead to the IMSA program, Vanthoor adds: “Hopefully, with a bit more time, it will go even better. We have good people and I firmly believe it will get better. We will be able to fight for wins, I am convinced of that.”
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“We have already had good races this season where we showed good pace and good strategy. We just have to keep working now and make sure we eliminate all the tiny little mistakes from our system.”
The series- and continent-spanning synergy between WRT’s WEC and IMSA activities has led to noticeable progress on the track compared to previous seasons. The BMW M Hybrid V8 cars regularly fight for top positions in both championships.
When asked how far the IMSA program still is from its potential and what improvements are needed for the future, Vanthoor points to the overall progress while highlighting the remaining details necessary to fine-tune the complete package.
“From an overall perspective, or when you also look at the car’s performance on the WEC side, I see it positively. If you look now at the WEC and IMSA, we sometimes or even mostly try to fight at the very front in both series. That was a bit more difficult last year. So that is positive,” says the 28-year-old Belgian, whose time as a WRT driver in various racing series goes back to 2016.
According to Vanthoor, the focus in the IMSA program is now on improving operational processes and the technical development of the car: “We had some minor problems here and there with setting everything up correctly on the car and ensuring that communication within the team works well. I think these are small things that are normal with a new setup.”
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“I therefore think we are absolutely on the right track. But I do believe we still need to improve some points on the car. So we have to keep working hard. Maybe by the end of the year, or certainly next year, we will have a complete package with which we can fight for something big,” says Vanthoor.
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