The wait is over. Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde put the BMW M Hybrid V8 on top of the box at Indianapolis, giving BMW M Team WRT its first GTP victory since taking over the programme from BMW M Team RLL for 2026. Vanthoor started third, van der Linde made the pass that mattered with only a few minutes left, and the #24 car brought home BMW’s first overall IMSA win in North America under the WRT banner.
It’s worth sitting with how long this took. WRT arrived with a genuine pedigree, a WEC-proven operation, a new North Carolina base, and an Evo-updated car with a smaller kidney grille and revised aero. Through the Rolex 24, Sebring, and everything since, the pace showed up in qualifying more than it showed up on Sunday. Four podiums this season is a respectable return for a first year with a new team, but podiums aren’t wins, and everyone involved knew it. Team boss Vincent Vosse said as much after the race, calling it “a really strong weekend” that started with a title in GT World Challenge Europe at Zandvoort and continued with this, the programme’s first GTP win, at the same track where the IMSA project was first discussed roughly a year ago.
September 18 – 20, 2026
Van der Linde’s move on Earl Bamber is the moment that will get replayed, but the more interesting story is what a win here does for the credibility of the switch itself. Ending a 17-year relationship with Bobby Rahal’s team is not a small decision, and BMW made it on the bet that consolidating GTP and WEC operations under one roof would eventually pay off in ways that mattered more than continuity. One win at Indianapolis doesn’t settle that argument on its own, but it’s the first hard data point in WRT’s favour, and it lands with two rounds left in the season and a full campaign’s worth of learning already banked for 2027.
There’s a secondary storyline that shouldn’t get buried under the GTP result. Turner Motorsport’s Robby Foley and Patrick Gallagher won GTD in the #96 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, the team’s first class win in more than two years, and it puts them into the points lead heading into the Road Atlanta finale. Paul Miller Racing’s sister car had the pace for a GTD PRO podium and instead got collected by rivals late in the race, dropping Neil Verhagen and Connor De Phillippi out of the points lead even as they stay in the title fight. Two BMW M4 GT3 EVOs fighting for two different championships at the season finale is a genuinely good problem to have, and it’s arguably a bigger story for the brand’s GT programme than a single GTP win.
September 18 – 20, 2026
Marco Wittmann’s race, by contrast, was the one nobody wanted. Contact with an Aston Martin while trying to pass, a drive-through penalty, and a public apology afterward turned what should have been a celebratory day for the #25 car into a footnote. It happens over a long season, and Wittmann owned it cleanly in his post-race comments, but it’s a reminder that BMW’s two-car GTP effort is still capable of taking points off itself as easily as off its rivals.
Road Atlanta in two weeks decides both the GTD and GTD PRO titles, with BMW represented in the fight for each. For GTP, the pressure is different: prove Indianapolis wasn’t a one-off before the season closes the book on WRT’s first year in charge.
