By Karim Ojjeh

The result does not show the exemplary effort of team as a whole. We knew from the beginning that Monza was not an appropriate track for the BMW. All corners are relatively low gear corners (in sequence with their names): Variante 1, first gear, Variante 2, second gear, Lesmo 1, third gear, Lesmo 2, third gear, Ascari, third gear, and Parabolica, third gear. To really appreciate the car and use its full potential, you need high speed corners in fourth, fifth and sixth gear.
 
The bronze session was used to bed in the brake discs and pads. No real issue at this point, but to learn the track with a new car. Free practice was relatively fine using different setups on the car, and so was pre-qualifying. Qualifying was horrendously competitive. The level of drivers has again moved up a huge notch. You have very young talented drivers, and former F1 drivers. Blancpain GT Series should actually be called the GT3 World Championship. I am stressing this high level of competition as the first 24 cars in qualifying were separated by only 1 second! Yes, 24 cars within 1 second! (Note: 57 cars in total!!) We tried our best, but ended up 55th overall and 28th in class. We knew it, but reminded ourselves that we had a good race package.
 
I started the race! Getting on the grid was an experience by itself. The car did not like low rev gear changes, so I had to push a little. Then, arriving at the grid I was stuck in second gear and high revs. I had to shut the engine and ask for my engineers to help. We reset the car, but on the start of the formation lap, I was stuck on traction 7, rather than being on 3. You have to imagine all these alerts going off all at once and you trying to make sense of them, going through the procedures. After a little “yoga” breathing I was able to sort it all out. The formation lap was somewhat crazy. By the time the light went green I was about to enter the last corner, so about 700 meters away!!!! That really blow our chances in getting a good result, but I was by myself and could concentrate on my racing.
 
The first part of the stint went well. No horrors, just the regular racing incidents at times – car parts flying, gravel from cars coming back on the track after contact, cars blowing their engines, yellow flags, etc. The last 10 laps were harder. I was losing the rear tires due to degradation, so I could not apply the throttle as comfortably as before. It was difficult at times, especially at the exit of fast corners. After 60 minutes I was called in for the pit stop. We were 35th overall and 12th in class – I had made up the lost ground and it was up to my co-drivers to maintain our position.
 
Julien, our new driver, took the drive. He was flawless and was able to finish his stint 11th in class. Then Oliver took over. He was battling for 10th, until 12 minutes before the end. For some unknown reason the engine stopped and the race was over. However, as we completed 70% of the race, we were still classified, 15th in class and 39th overall.
 
We are still waiting for the car to come back and inspect it. Preliminary thoughts lead us to believe it is an electronic rather than mechanical problem. As this is only the second race for BMW M6 GT3, BMW and us, as a team, still have a lot to learn from the car and data to collect.