IMSA Long Beach

How BMW rewrote GTP software to fix “serious issues” at Long Beach

BMW’s second consecutive podium finish in the IMSA SportsCar Championship at Long Beach followed a software fix sent from its HQ in Munich, Germany.

Charles Bradley

Edited: Apr 26, 2023, 4:42 PM

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#25 BMW Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8: Connor De Phillippi, Nick Yelloly

Connor De Phillippi, who set fastest lap en route to the M Hybrid V8’s runner-up spot at the Californian street track, revealed that a major problem was encountered in opening practice and needed software for its hybrid system to be rewritten for the #25 Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing-run car to function properly.

The LMDh machinery runs with a common hybrid system, but the software for the electronic control unit is completely open and has been a huge area of development to keep the cars running properly.

“I’m proud of the team, because we had serious issues in FP1 and we had the guys back in Munich trying to repeat and solve them, and they rewrote code to fix it,” said De Phillippi. “It’s just incredible the amount of effort this program requires, it’s pretty cool.”

His team-mate Nick Yelloly said the recent results have answered critics of the BMW LMDh project, which will be expanded to include the World Endurance Championship next season.

“There was a lot of comments on the internet and whatnot, so to come to Long Beach and finish second feels quite nice,” said Yelloly. “The hard work that’s gone on back at base and in Munich, it’s been tremendous.

“It’s a huge program to get up and running with such a short timeframe, so to put it together and get the right people involved and the right amount of testing in order to be competitive. We’ve been able to improve our drivability session by session and now we genuinely looked OK on pace here, so onwards and upwards.

“The team will keep working our arses off. In that last stint Connor gave it everything. As a combination we’re looking pretty solid, and I’m really looking forward to visiting all the other tracks now.”

#25 BMW Team RLL BMW M Hybrid V8: Connor De Phillippi, Nick Yelloly

Photo by: Gavin Baker / Motorsport Images

De Phillippi also paid tribute to Yelloly’s work on the project in the simulator, the Briton bringing his expertise in this field from years working for the Aston Martin F1 team and in its previous guises since its Force India days.

“Nick has been developing our simulator back in Munich – like you wouldn’t believe the amount of days he puts in there,” he said. “The correlation is really impressive, and that’s helped us a lot.

“All our rivals have run DPi [cars] in the past, and they have a toolbox for these tracks. We have nothing, so the way we rolled off [at Long Beach] was very impressive from the team.

“And then when we did hit issues, we worked as a team to solve them. Still a lot to be done, but we’re getting an even better car each time.”

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