Long Beach. For the first time in this IMSA
WeatherTechSportsCar Championship season, BMW Team RLL and the BMW
M8 GTE weren’t able to contest for podium finishes. In the ‘IMSA
Bubba Burger Sports Car Grand Prix’ at Long Beach (USA)
, the #25 BMW M8 GTE, driven by Tom Blomqvist (GBR) and Connor
De Phillippi (USA), finished seventh in the GTLM class. John Edwards
(USA) and Jesse Krohn (FIN) finished eighth in the #24 BMW M8 GTE.
Edwards was running fifth before the only pit stop of the race, but a
problem with a loose wheel-nut on the tyre change firstly cost the
team some time to fix and then resulted in a drive through penalty.
The 100-minute race was won by the #912 Porsche.
Bobby Rahal (Team Principal BMW Team RLL): “We felt
this circuit was not going to be in our wheelhouse, as they say. All
we can do is to keep working hard and doing what we can do and hope
that we are able to find the pace compared to the other teams who
currently have an advantage on us.”
Connor De Phillippi (#25 BMW M8 GTE, 7th place):
“During the first part of my stint we seemed very
competitive and I was happy with the car in comparison to yesterday.
As the stint went on however, the others just seemed to have a bit
more pace than we did but we knew that this weekend was going to be a
difficult weekend for us. The next tracks suit our car really well and
we will focus on fighting for podiums again in the next events.”
Tom Blomqvist (#25 BMW M8 GTE, 7th
place): “We simply did not have the pace this weekend to
really challenge the competition. We just had to run a smart race but
there simply was not enough that happened for us to make any gains.
So, now we look ahead to Mid-Ohio, a track that should suit us a bit more.”
John Edwards (#24 BMW M8 GTE, 8th place):
“A disappointing result but the car was much improved over yesterday’s
qualifying so our pace was a bit better. Unfortunately it is a very
short weekend so if the car is not right in qualifying you start in
the wrong spot. We were able to move up a couple of spots but then had
trouble on the pit stop.”
Jesse Krohn (#24 BMW M8 GTE, 8th place):
“Today was difficult. At the end of the day we didn’t have a bad race
car, we just got a little bit unlucky in the pit stop. Something
happened with the rear tyre, I do not know exactly what but just
cannot recover from such an incident a short race such as Long Beach.
Overall, I am happy with the steps we made with the car and even
starting last, without the tyre issue, there was a chance to maybe
make something happen.”