A large chapter in the North American sports car race comes to an end. BMW and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) will separate at the end of the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship season 2025. He closed a 17-year partnership with several titles, iconic victories and helped to re-establish BMW as violence in the American endurance race.
The news that was first reported by racer.com signals a strategic realignment for BMW Motorsport. The German brand will be expected to consolidate its top prototype race under a banner. The Belgian team WRT will take over the sole factory team for the Mybrid V8 program from BMW. The WRT is currently finding the Hypercar entry from BMW to the FIA World Endurance Championship and will report its responsibility to IMSA from 2026.
“We are obviously disappointed that our race relationship to BMW ends after so many years in which we had a lot of success,” team director Bobby Rahal told Racer.com. “It was a privilege and an honor to represent BMW on the circuits of America and Canada, and now it’s time to deal with new things.”
We contacted BMW Motorsport USA after a comment, but at that time you could not “comment on the plans for IMSA for 2026”.
A historical success
The BMW-RLL Alliance started in the American Le Mans series in 2009 and quickly delivered results. The team conquered the title of the GT2 teams in 2010 and won the teams, manufacturers and driver championships in 2011 with the E92 M3 GT and established itself as a benchmark in this category. This dynamic was continued by successive platforms – Z4 GTLM, M6 GTLM, M8 GTE – with outstanding victories at marquee events such as Long Beach, Laguna Seca and the twelve hours of Sebring. The climax came with two wins in Rolex 24 in Daytona in 2019 and 2020, which RLL’s legacy consolidated in modern IMSA history.
The LMDH -era
The partnership stretched to the ERA of the hybrid prototype in 2023 when RLL debuted the M Hybrid V8 from IMSA in the new GTP category of IMSA. Although the results in the middle of the violent competition of Porsche, Cadillac and Acura were initially difficult to grasp, the team achieved an inheritance in Watkins Glen in 2023 and won its first GTP victory in Indianapolis in 2024.
This year RLL in Daytona, Sebring, Long Beach and Laguna Seca recorded the rod positions before the pace in front of the foreground, although a victory has only been out of reach. The last three races – in Road America (August 3), the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (September 21) and Petit Le Mans from Road Atlanta (October 11) – can give the team the chance to reduce the ERA with an explanatory result.
While Racers Marshall Pruett reports that the WRT team is expected to take over the responsibility for the BMW program -the existing FIA WEC Hypercar campaign with the M Hybrid V8 of the FIA -WEC -HYPAR -BMW has not yet officially confirmed the move. After a delay in the decision at the beginning of this year, the Belgian squad appears to be the leader in order to enable the US trade policy in relation to the tariffs in order to stabilize. Until BMW makes a formal announcement, the structure and scope of its North American prototype will continue to be changed.
