With all the global changes to BMW Motorsport we contacted our sources at BMW North America to get an official statement on what if any changes we ‘ll be seeing for 2010. BMW NA has confirmed the status of several Motorsport campaigns:
– BMW Motorsport today announced that Formula BMW Americas will bid the international motor racing calendar farewell after the 2009 season finale at Mosport (Canada) on 30 August. Since 2004, over 110 drivers have competed for points and victories in the series. Formula BMW will continue to race in Europe and Asia.
– BMW announced on 29 July that the BMW Group will not continue its Formula One campaign after the end of the 2009 season. Resources freed up as a result are to be dedicated to the continued development of new drive technologies and projects in the field of sustainability. BMW will continue to be actively involved in other motorsport series (see below).
– In this context, BMW of North America will continue to support US motorsport activities in 2010, similar to its 2009 effort with the BMW M3 GT2 (www.bmwusa.com/motorsport).
– BMW Motorrad Motorsport racing is gathering momentum with the launch of the all-new S 1000 RR superbike. The S 1000 RR began Superbike World Championship (www.bmw-motorrad.com/motorsport) competition in 2009 and will contest another season in 2010.
We were relieved to hear that BMW will continue to support it ‘s GT2 program and the new M3 that is being campaigned by Rahal/Letterman racing. While the loss of F1 is huge to the BMW world, it does take BMW back to its roots in focusing on a production based series racing.