
To take back-to-back poles in IMSA is one unusual feat, but for the second of those to come at your first-ever visit to the treacherous Sebring is quite another.
After his first proper season in a top-level prototype last year, Dries Vanthoor is quickly becoming one of the hottest properties in IMSA. He’s not only fast, but he’s witty, sometimes shockingly honest and uncensored, has a brother racing in the series with who he has a love/rivalry relationship, and is a teammate of ex-Formula 1 driver Kevin Magnussen who has brought added attention to the BMW program, too.
Vanthoor had only three IMSA starts to his name entering this season – in 2019 and 2020 for Audi and then last year in the M Hybrid V8 GTP car, all at Daytona – but took poles at both in impressive fashion, and after only doing Daytona last year, he’s full-time IMSA this season with Phillip Eng and cameos from Magnussen for the longer races.
“We knew that we did a lot of work on the car, and we hoped that this year, the car is going to be a lot more competitive, and you can fight for some victories,” Vanthoor tells RACER.
“So after the race in Daytona, that track I know well, Sebring, I don’t know that track at all… first time out there! So then to be on pole is pretty cool and showed again that the car is performing well. But also a nice feeling, because Sebring is not the easiest of tracks to just rock up and drive.”
Unfortunately, both races have not played out as BMW would have wanted. In the first, a dislodged diffuser in the final hours robbed Vanthoor’s No.24 car of a chance to win and it finished fourth. At Sebring, the No.24 again appeared to be the best of BMW’s chances at victory, but was smashed in the pitlane by the No.60 Acura.
Perhaps the positive to take from that – as well as Vanthoor’s pace – is that the BMW is a much-improved package for 2025.
It had a breakthrough weekend in IMSA with its first win – and a 1-2 – with this car coming at Indianapolis in the second half of last year, but even bigger changes since then have helped push the car’s development.
“I think the biggest open thing, which I think everybody knows, is the brake change we did – changing manufacturer of brakes compared to last year,” Vanthoor explains. “This opened up a lot of new things for us.
“Last year, we were very locked in with the brakes. They were glazing and causing issues with tire pressures. We could not be aggressive on them, which I think is still an important factor on a race car, to have good tire pressures, and we could never really do that, because there was a certain threshold where we can’t go below.
“That affects the whole balance, and also the drivability. The car last year was just not as good as this year.
“We also worked a lot on other areas, on systems. (But) I think the biggest thing that helped a lot of other areas forward was the brake change. That was a good call to do that.”
Because the hybrid regen is done through braking it’s a key part of the car, and also impacts another key battle ground in terms of tire warm-up. There are no tire warmers in IMSA, and any gains on cold rubber versus the opposition can be massive.
Vanthoor has been the poster boy for BMW – run in conjunction with Rahal Letterman Lanigan in IMSA – and its improvements. But it also feels like he’s developing a cult following as the latest in a long line of series entertainers.
In a first stint at Daytona where he simply drove away from the opposition to a frankly ludicrous amount of 13 seconds before the first stops, he made a mistake entering his pitbox. It’s a “s**t stint when you end like that”, he said angrily while being interviewed.
In Sebring, he chastised himself after his first stint again, saying he drove “like a billy,” which is slang term for a racing driver not doing a very good job. You can probably add two and two together when you start rhyming it…
RACER asked Vanthoor about this, whether it was intentional, and if he thought about it or if his reactions are just natural.
“People who know me – and also I don’t mind being open about it – I am a bit of a laid back, open, honest guy that s ays what I think, I always say what I think to someone, and if the guy doesn’t like it, that’s his problem, not mine,” he says.