BMW M Team WRT strong start of season with BMW M4

WECHyperCar

Apr 26

BMW M Team WRT celebrates a strong start to the season with first and fifth place finishes for the two BMW M4 GT3 EVO. The pole-sitting #10 McLaren suffered alternator failure just half-an-hour from the end after leading 98 laps of the 171 covered.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Imola 2026. Winning BMW M4 LMGT3 EVO #69 ahead of sister #32

#69 BMW M4 GT3 EVO win

The #69 BMW M4 GT3 EVO started from fourth place in the LMGT3 class and, thanks to a strong performance by McIntosh, quickly moved to the front and took the lead. Against strong competition, the car consistently stayed in the top three and claimed victory when the McLaren ahead suffered a technical failure. Harper brought home the first win.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Imola 2026. BMW M4 LMGT3 EVO #69

Dan Harper (Team WRT, #69 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, 1st place LMGT3): “After our joint test races, I already had a good feeling that with this crew we could achieve podium finishes and eventually a victory, but for it to happen in the very first race is incredible. Many thanks to Team WRT for the fantastic strategy! The BMW M4 GT3 has always been strong at Imola, so we were optimistic. Anthony put us on course for the podium with his opening stints. After that, it was a tough battle against extremely strong competition. I feel a bit for the McLaren crew, as they were really super fast. I had already settled for second place, but then the car in front of me suddenly slowed down.”

Parker Thompson (Team WRT, #69 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, 1st place LMGT3): “Victory on my debut with Team WRT and the BMW M4 GT3 EVO in the FIA WEC. This is an incredible day! I thought it would take us the whole season to achieve this goal, but now we’ve cleared this hurdle on our very first attempt. My stints were good, I did what I had to do: After Anthony put us in a fantastic position, I handed over to Dan so he could do what he does best – bring the race home. We had a bit of luck, and I feel for the McLaren crew. I know what it feels like to retire while leading, and it’s not nice. For us, this victory still feels fantastic.”

Anthony McIntosh (Team WRT, #69 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, 1st place LMGT3): “I can’t really say much. The team, my fellow drivers – everyone was simply legendary this weekend. For me, the car felt very calm, and so I was able to pull off some good overtaking manoeuvres.”” Source: BMW

TF Sport’s #33 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R runner-up

TF Sport’s #33 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R earned a runner-up spot in LMGT3 Sunday at the end of the Six Hours of Imola to start the FIA World Endurance Championship season. It was the second straight season-opening podium for the team and the Corvette GT3 in the series.

Nicky Catsburg, Jonny Edgar and series rookie Blake McDonald had a nearly flawless race in a new-look lineup for the team. The #33 Corvette came from deep in the field and gained 12 spots from start to finish and was just 0.265 seconds from the race win with Catsburg chasing down the class-winning BMW on the last lap.

McDonald started 14th in class for his first race in the FIA WEC and first dealing with Hypercar traffic. By the time he exited the #33 and handed over to Edgar, the Corvette was firmly inside the top-five. It led for the first time just shy of the halfway point, not long after Edgar set the fastest lap of the race in his opening stint.

He swapped to Catsburg for the final one hour, 40 minutes of the race with the Corvette in third. Despite a slightly long final pit stop, Catsburg moved into second inside the final 35 minutes and clawed away at what was a three-second deficit down to two-tenths at the end.

NICKY CATSBURG, #33 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: "First off all, it's great to be back in WEC and to come back with a podium is obviously really nice. That's definitely thanks to my teammates who did an impeccable job today. No mistakes and that's what you need to be on the podium here. I feel like we got unlucky in the pitlane a couple of times, otherwise I think we could have won. I tried really hard with the BMW at the end but I know Dan Harper really well. He used to be a teammate; I was not expecting to make a mistake, and he didn't. Unfortunately I couldn't pass him. In the first stint I struggled behind him quite a lot and destroyed my tires a bit. Overall I think we can be happy with the result and we can look forward to a good season."

JONNY EDGAR, #33 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: "It was a good first race, and I enjoyed my stint a lot. We were on a different tire strategy than other cars around, so we managed to jump to the lead but had a little worse tires for the next stint. I was defending a lot from the McLaren and managed to hold him off most of the stint. We also had an energy advantage on all the cars we were racing and were in a good position. It was really unlucky on Nicky's last pit stop. We had a wheel gun failure and lost quite a few seconds. Without that, I think we had a good chance of coming out in the lead. It's a shame to have that happen at an unlucky time. But Blake and Nicky did an outstanding job. Coming from 14th to second is a great start to the season. I'm really happy with this and really enjoyed the car. It was great all week."

BLAKE McDONALD, #33 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R: "First WEC race and first WEC podium. I think we had the victory and the car to win and we had the pace as well. A couple of little mishaps put us in P2 but I can't complain too much about that. Starting from P14 and getting up to P2, leading the race for a portion... Jonny did such a good job and Nicky did such a good job. I couldn't be more proud. I've done a lot of work with TF Sport in Asia and now in the ELMS. To get a podium with them and a trophy with them means everything to me. I get to go into my week-long break before Paul Ricard in ELMS with a lot of momentum. This high will probably take a little while to come down from." Source: Corvette Racing

Porsche third and fourth

Both Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3 entries ended third and fourth, marking strong points in both defending FIA Endurance Trophy for LMGT3 Teams and drivers titles.

The #92 car, The Bend Manthey, piloted by Yasser Shahin, Riccardo Pera and Richard Lietz ended on the podium.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Imola 2026. #92 The Bend Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3

Timur Boguslavskiy, James Cottingham and reigning DTM champion Ayhancan Güven at the wheel of the Manthey DK Engineering #91 Porsche ended fourth.

Fifth place finish for the #32 BMW M4 GT3 EVO

The #32 BMW M4 GT3 EVO with Augusto Farfus (BRA), Sean Gelael (INA), and Darren Leung (GBR) also performed strongly. The trio started from fifth place and, despite a five-second penalty for an unsafe release, finished in the same position.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Imola 2026. #32 BMW M4 GT3 EVO

Augusto Farfus (Team WRT, #32 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, 5th place LMGT3): “This fifth place feels better to me than it looks. We had technical problems with the car before the race which set us back in preparation. The team did a great job getting us back on track, but we were still missing a bit of fine-tuning. We lost a lot of ground during a phase in the middle of the race. That was impossible to make up. We need to look into why that happened. Congratulations to the sister car on the victory. That shows the potential we have. Still, fifth place means important points, and in this championship, it’s all about consistently collecting points.”