WRT principal Vicent Vosse was frustrated and said BMW ‘will not accept’ Ferrari’s penalty and the leniency shown the #83 after colliding with Dries Vanthoor’s BMW at the 24 hours of Le Mans.
Six hours and 35 minutes into the crown jewel race of the World Endurance Championship, disaster hit for BMW. The #83 Ferrari, which was piloted by Robert Kubica, swerved and hit the #15 BMW piloted by Dries Vanthoor. This led to the BMW hitting the wall and eventually retiring from the race.
In response to the incident, the #83 Ferrari received a 30-second-stop-and-go penalty. The length of the penalty was criticised, as it allowed the Ferrari to remain on the lead lap. This is significant because safety car rules allow all cars on the lead lap to gather when the race is neutralised. This helped it remain in contention for the win.
The BMW team principal Vincent Vosse spoke to Autosport about the incident. “For me, the penalty was very unfair. You take the race away from someone. You deserve to be somehow slowed down, much more than being able to fight for the podium again three hours later.”
Dries Vanthoor took to X to express his disappointment on the situation.
Despite the frustration over the incident, Vosse remained respectful of Robert Kubica. He said, “I’m close to Robert – he drove for us for a few years,” continuing to say, “We won the championship with him last year, and he’s someone that I respect a lot.“
Vosse did confess he ‘didn’t expect something like that’ from Kubica, but would not judge him for the incident.
Unfortunately, this was not the end of the troubles for BMW at the 24 hours of Le Mans.
Marco Whittmann spun the #15 at the beginning of the race. Later in the race, Robin Frijns crashed the #20 BMW, causing it to limp back to the pits where it remained for 21 hours.
The Head of BMW M Motorsport, Andreas Roos, admitted that the #20 could’ve gone back out. However, they didn’t want to risk further damage before the next round of WEC.
His analysis to Autosport of BMW’s Le Mans was ‘too many mistakes’.
Lamenting, “Unfortunately, we saw that we were quick at some stage, but maybe a little bit too quick, or trying too hard.”
However, they learnt what ‘not to do next year.’
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