A significant chapter in North American sports activities automotive racing is coming to an in depth. BMW and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL) will half methods on the finish of the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season, concluding a 17-year partnership that delivered a number of titles, iconic wins, and helped re-establish BMW as a pressure in American endurance racing.
The information, first reported by RACER.com, indicators a strategic realignment for BMW Motorsport. The German marque is predicted to consolidate its top-level prototype racing beneath one banner, with Belgian group WRT set to take over as the only real manufacturing unit group for BMW’s M Hybrid V8 program. WRT at present fields BMW’s Hypercar entry within the FIA World Endurance Championship and can reportedly increase its tasks to IMSA starting in 2026. RLL, which knowledgeable employees of the choice earlier this summer season, is already exploring new alternatives past the present season.
“We’re clearly upset that our racing relationship with BMW is coming to an finish after so a few years the place we’ve had a number of success with them,” group principal Bobby Rahal informed RACER.com. “It was a privilege and an honor to symbolize BMW on the circuits of America and in Canada, and now it’s time to maneuver onto new issues.”
We reached out to BMW Motorsport USA for a remark, however they weren’t capable of “touch upon any plans for IMSA for 2026” at this cut-off date.
A Historic Run of Success
The BMW-RLL alliance started in 2009 within the American Le Mans Sequence and rapidly delivered outcomes. The group captured the GT2 Groups’ title in 2010 and swept the Groups’, Producers’, and Drivers’ championships in 2011 with the E92 M3 GT, establishing itself as a benchmark within the class. That momentum continued by way of successive platforms—Z4 GTLM, M6 GTLM, M8 GTE—with standout victories at marquee occasions like Lengthy Seashore, Laguna Seca, and the Twelve Hours of Sebring. The head got here with back-to-back wins on the Rolex 24 At Daytona in 2019 and 2020, cementing RLL’s legacy in trendy IMSA historical past.
The LMDh Period
The partnership prolonged into the hybrid prototype period in 2023, when RLL debuted the M Hybrid V8 in IMSA’s new GTP class. Though outcomes had been initially elusive amid fierce competitors from Porsche, Cadillac, and Acura, the group scored an inherited win at Watkins Glen in 2023 and claimed its first on-track GTP victory at Indianapolis in 2024.
This yr, RLL has demonstrated front-running tempo, capturing pole positions at Daytona, Sebring, Lengthy Seashore, and Laguna Seca, although a victory has remained simply out of attain. The ultimate three races—at Street America (Aug. 3), Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Sept. 21), and Street Atlanta’s Petit Le Mans (Oct. 11)—supply the group an opportunity to cap off the period with a press release consequence.
Whereas RACER’s Marshall Pruett reviews that Group WRT is predicted to imagine duty for BMW’s IMSA GTP program beginning in 2026—including to its current FIA WEC Hypercar marketing campaign with the M Hybrid V8—BMW has but to formally affirm the transfer. The Belgian squad seems to have emerged because the frontrunner following a delay within the resolution earlier this yr, reportedly to permit time for U.S. commerce coverage round tariffs to stabilize. Till BMW makes a proper announcement, the construction and scope of its North American prototype effort are nonetheless topic to vary.
