[ad_1]
BEYOND its bid for Bathurst glory this weekend, BMW wants to make a more lasting impact on the Australian GT3 scene.
The German marque will have two horses in the running at the Repco Bathurst 12 Hour, with the all-Pro pairings of Dries Vanthoor/Sheldon van der Line/Charles Weerts in the #32 Team WRT entry and Valentino Rossi/Maxime Martin/Raffaele Marciello sharing the sister #46.
But from a year-round perspective, BMW hopes to see its M4 GT3 penetrate the Australian market – especially once its new-for-2025 Evo version arrives.
As pointed out by Andreas Roos, head of BMW M Motorsport, they already have a foot in the door via the burgeoning GT4 arena.
“I think we have now already five of our GT4 cars in Australia,” Roos told selected media.
“I don’t know if they are all sold but I know that we delivered five cars to Australia, and so there is definitely the interest on the Australian side and Australian market to have our GT products there.
“We are still in discussions about GT3, if there are possibilities coming up to also have a GT3 car there, but definitely we have started already with the GT4 car.
“And for sure for us, it would be also nice to see the M4 GT3 there. We have to see.
“We will have the Evo car coming from 2025, because the car is now in the third year of its homologation like we run it at the moment, so there will be an update of the M4 GT3 car, the Evo version for 2025.
“So there will be some new cars coming on the market and maybe there is the possibility that somebody in Australia is also happy to run a car for us.”
BMW launched its Evo GT3 during a test at Spa last year, with Roos explaining the upgrades.
“It’s an update in several areas, not just to improve the performance of the car, because in the end it’s a BoP (Balance of Performance) championship, so to improve the car and at the end be penalised by BoP is not helping,” he said.
“So we worked a lot on driveability, handling, handling for the mechanics, to reduce the running costs of the car because it’s always a topic, how high are the running costs of the car.
“Because as I said, it doesn’t bring you anything to make the car two seconds quicker when at the end the BoP takes away those two seconds.
“There’s a lot of updates here and there but it’s also not a complete new car.
“I can also say, all the M4 GT3s which are now out on the market can be updated to the Evo version (via an upgrade kit).
“So it’s not that you have to put your car in the bin and you have to buy a new one.”
GT World Challenge Australia has already picked up a new manufacturer for season 2024, with Arise Racing to run a pair of Ferrari 296 GT3s.
Ford’s incoming Mustang GT3 is also expected to attract attention once it becomes available Down Under.
[ad_2]
Source link