Photo: Fabrizio Boldoni/DPPI
BMW M Motorsport boss Andreas Roos said it was “a bit of a surprise” to come close to toppling Ferrari in qualifying for the Qatar 1812km, hailing it as a sign that the brand is “definitely working in the right direction” in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
The pair of BMW M Hybrid V8s qualified second and sixth during the Hyperpole shootout session at the Lusail International Circuit, with Dries Vanthoor only losing out to Ferrari driver Antonio Giovinazzi by 0.136 seconds.
That outcome resulted in BMW’s first overall front row start in a WEC race, which followed on from last month’s breakthrough pole position in the Rolex 24 at Daytona.
“We can be happy,” Roos told Sportscar365.
“I think a good start into the season when we see where we were one year ago here in Qatar. But the most important thing is that we continue with the progress we do on the car.
“We did a lot of work over the winter time and it looks like we are definitely working in the right direction.
“That’s good for the team, good for everybody involved to see that the progress, what we do is there and the steps are the right ones.
“Seeing the pace of the Ferrari the whole weekend, they were very strong and to be that close is a bit of a surprise for us, to be honest.
“But still, let’s say we are happy to be that close to the Ferrari.”
However, Roos reckoned Ferrari will still be a force to be reckoned with during Friday’s ten-hour season opener.
“In the long runs, they were also strong,” said Roos.
“At the end, it’s down to tire management and keeping the tires in the window.
“We run until midnight so at the moment it looks like it’s getting quite cold here so it’s also about keeping the tire alive and keeping them in in the right temperature window.
“For sure, we did a lot of running now in all the sessions and also at the Prologue to just gather data and now we stick our heads together and find hopefully the right setup for tomorrow for the race.”
BMW’s second car, piloted by Robin Frijns, was 0.787 seconds down on the pole time in sixth, but noted that he likely could have been closer to Vanthoor had he not encountered traffic in Turn 5 on his flying lap attempt.
Despite that, the Dutchman echoed Roos’ remarks about the progress BMW has made in comparison to last year’s Qatar season opener.
“If you just see the progress we made last year, during the year, we started bad, I’d say, but at the end [of the year] were competitive,” he said.
“In Bahrain we were also driving up the front, or front-ish, top five. But now, we improved the car, we had some little, I wouldn’t say updates, but we changed a [few] things on the car and it’s more of a combined package now.
“We put the car on the ground here for the Prologue, and it felt good out of the box. And then you are on a good footing from the first outing, and that’s important.
“Last year we had issues, the car was new, so we were fixing the issues more than looking for performance and now the issues are gone so we are focusing on performance.”
Despite that, Frijns predicted a race in which it will be “extremely difficult to overtake,” also because the Lusail circuit is a venue with fairly light tire degradation.
“For us, especially it’s very difficult to follow cars closely. I think Ferrari and Alpine are very strong in that perspective.
“I think we do have the pace. I do believe that Ferrari and Cadillac are a bit quicker than us in the long runs, but we are up there.
“We qualified P6, we can go with the train. Need to stay out of trouble obviously in Turn 1 and hopefully we can follow the train forward. It’s gonna be a fight on pure pace.”
