The Late Pass That Finally Won BMW M Team WRT An IMSA Race
Racing
A move up the inside with five minutes left gave the Belgian team its first win in its debut season with BMW in IMSA.
Sheldon van der Linde passed Earl Bamber’s Cadillac with about five minutes left, giving the team its first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory. BMW M Team WRT won the Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, September 20, taking its first IMSA victory. Sheldon van der Linde and Dries Vanthoor drove the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 to the overall and GTP class win in the two-hour, 40-minute race, finishing 2.926 seconds ahead of the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R of Earl Bamber and Jack Aitken.
The race was the penultimate round of the 2026 season and WRT’s first win since taking over BMW’s factory GTP program from Rahal Letterman Lanigan this year. It was the team’s fourth podium in the class. BMW also won overall at Indianapolis in 2024, when RLL ran the program.
Late Pass Decides The Race
Van der Linde caught Bamber with seven minutes and 10 seconds remaining. The two cars ran side by side through Turns 7 and 8 before Bamber held on to the lead. With five minutes and 30 seconds left, they came up on Dennis Olsen’s GTD PRO Ford Mustang. Bamber went left to pass it, and van der Linde went to the inside to take the lead, which he held to the finish. It’s van der Linde’s first win in the GTP class. Vanthoor won previously at Road America in 2025 with BMW M Team RLL, alongside Philipp Eng.
How The Race Unfolded
Vanthoor qualified the No. 24 in third. The car was involved in contact on the opening lap after Kevin Estre’s Porsche spun, but it continued and ran near the front through the first half. Tom Blomqvist led from pole in the No. 60 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06 until Aitken passed him for the lead in the Cadillac about 40 minutes in. Bamber took over the No. 31 at the midpoint and led for most of the second half. A caution with 58 minutes remaining brought the leaders into the pits, and Bamber came out ahead of van der Linde for the restart.
The second BMW M Hybrid V8, driven by Eng and Marco Wittmann, finished tenth. Eng’s No. 25 was involved in a Turn 1 incident at the start with Laurin Heinrich’s No. 6 Porsche. That contact spun Julien Andlauer’s No. 7 Porsche and brought out an early safety car. Shortly after the late restart, Wittmann and Roman De Angelis’s No. 23 Aston Martin Valkyrie both went off course at Turn 7.
The 2026 IMSA season ends October 3 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta with the 10-hour Motul Petit Le Mans.
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