Dries Vanthoor "super happy to be on pole" after BMW's strong start to the 2026 WEC campaign

Credit: BMW Media

Before 2026, the BMW M Hybrid V8 had only picked up three podiums since its Hypercar debut in 2024, let alone won a race. Now, the No.20 BMW is the Championship leader and the No.15 is on pole for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The season's prologue took place in Imola, after conflicts in the Middle East cancelled the Qatar 1812km. From the first tests, it looked as though the Ferrari 499P would be impossible to beat, once again. The theory was proven wrong at the 6 Hours of Imola, the No.51 Ferrari could only finish as high as second, in a Toyota sandwich, while the No.50 finished in sixth place.

In contrast, BMW finished fifth and seventh at Imola. Driver of the No.15 BMW, Raffaele Marciello said they could be satisfied, but still wanted to "move forwards." Meanwhile, René Rast, driver of the No.20 thought the team had missed an opportunity for a better result: "Unfortunately, we had to serve a drive-through penalty during the race.

"At that point, we were ahead of the Toyota that ended up on the podium, so without that penalty more would certainly have been possible."

Rast's point about more being possible came true at the second round, the 6 hours of Spa. The No.20 BMW finished the race in first place, in front of the No.15 BMW which spent the final 30 minutes defending second place from the No.50 Ferrari. Kevin Magnussen, who was driving the No.15 at the time, described the result as "the best second place I've ever had."

BMW carried all the momentum to France, for the biggest race of the year, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The team's positivity remained through the test, Rast said: "We worked through a lot of test areas, did plenty of laps and had absolutely no problems. That was the aim. We’ll see the rest next week.

"Following our victory at Spa-Francorchamps, we have high expectations and want to finish on the podium, but it will be a long race in which anything can happen."

The first obstacle for BMW to overcome this week was the first qualifying session on Wednesday, where they had to be in the top 15 to make Hyperpole, which took place on Thursday. The two German cars did this easily, finishing fourth and sixth.

Credit: BMW Media

In Hyperpole, Dries Vanthoor was flying in the No.15 BMW, setting lap times which looked unbeatable. In the dying moments of qualifying, Jack Aitken proved otherwise, beating Vanthoor's time by 0.005 seconds. The No.20 crew initially thought they had lost pole, however Aitken's lap time was deleted due to a pit infringement, so they were rewarded the pole position a few minutes after the session ended.

Vanthoor was happy to be on pole, but his focus remains on the weekends race. "I’m super happy to be on pole at Le Mans! This is such a great event, and now being on pole here and giving everyone in the team what they deserve, is awesome. At the same time our goal is to win the race, so we need to keep it clean over 24 hours to be right there on Sunday."

If there was any question that the No.15's pace was a fluke, the No.20 BMW proved otherwise by finishing fourth. Robin Frijns piloted the championship leading car in the final part of Hyperpole: "It was the goal to be in the top-five, and in the end we are in P4. That means we are a bit out of the jungle at the start, which is good. My lap times were pretty far off.

"I wasn’t so happy with my runs in Hyperpole 2. I’m not where I should be, so we need to see where we can improve for the race."

Despite being ecstatic to take pole for the first time at Le Mans, BMW stayed classy considering the way Aitken and Cadillac lost it. Vincent Vosse, the team principal of BMW Motorsport said: "I am very happy to be on pole position for the first time in Hypercar.

"I take that, of course, but at the same time congratulations to Cadillac and Jack Aitken for putting on a great show! Overall, we at WRT can be extremely happy with the qualifying results. Now let’s focus on the race.”

The No.15 will lead the field to the start at 16:00 local time (15:00 BST) on Saturday.