BMW Unifies IMSA/WEC Lineup with Stellar Driver Stable

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Coming out of their 2024 campaign, BMW said that they were keen on unifying their driver lineups across the IMSA WeatherTech Championship and the WEC for 2025 and beyond, and they have accomplished just that with a stellar collection of talent. 

Highlighted by the addition of Kevin Magnussen to the stable, the M Motorsport team unveiled their full driver lineup on Thursday that will serve as a shared operation between Team WRT in the WEC and RLL in North America, and by shared we do mean that some of the drivers will rotate in and out of the cars for both teams as needed through the action-packed 2025 season to come.

Leading the way for this new era of M Motorsport is Magnussen joining Team RLL for three of the Michelin Endurance Cup rounds for the IMSA season - the Rolex 24, the 12 Hours of Sebring and the season finale at Petit Le Mans.

For their full-season IMSA efforts, the No. 24 and No. 25 cars will feature an almost completely revamped lineup as Philipp Eng is the only holdover from last season, and he'll be joined by Dries Vanthoor. For the No. 25, Marco Wittmann makes the jump over from the WEC to serve as driver 1/2, while Sheldon van der Linde will be his running mate for the season.

Both Jesse Krohn and Connor De Phillippi have been dropped from the BMW program. 

In the WEC, Magnussen, along with Robin Frijns, René Rast and Raffaele Marciello will be slotted accordingly for the No. 15 and the No. 20.

Check it out below -

 

There is a clash of race weekends in May with the Spa 6 Hours and Laguna Seca, and the math works out just perfect with the eight drivers split nicely between four cars, gee imagine that? 

As more and more teams opt for continuity for their factory programs and the teams that support them across both racing series, we like to think that the powers that be will make up the schedule to accommodate the travel requirements for the 2026 season and beyond. Let's be real here, with only about 15 races to balance out across the span of January to November we really should be able to find the time where one race in North America isn't scheduled on the same day as one in Europe. It'll be a pain to deal with for next season, especially with the insanely-stacked month of June, but let's hope the people making the big decisions have enough brain power to avoid that kind of cluster moving forward. 

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