Despite speculation, BMW has ruled out entering LeMans and sports car racing with an LMP1 entry. Last month there appeared to be some hope that BMW was considering such a move. However in an interview with Autosport this week, BMW motorsport boss Jens Marquardt played down speculation.

>”The regulations in LMP1 will be new for 2017 and it will be a hybrid class where the key players are competing at a high level,” said Marquardt.

Instead BMW is focused on preparing the new M6 race for the Tudor United SportsCar Championship so long as it could develop a suitable car out of its forthcoming M6 GT3.

Interestingly he made a point to say that BMW would remain in the US series “as long as we can have something there that is reasonably close enough [to the GT3 car] so that you don’t have to develop a new car.”

“We are working intensively on this, but it is still not a done deal,” he continued.