ALMS: BMW M3s out at Sebring
18 March 2000
BMW Team PTG notes: final race, March 17, 2000 Superflo 12 Hours at Sebring, Sebring (Fla.) International Raceway race one of 12, American Le Mans Series Both BMW M3s are out after eight hours of the 12-hour race. The engine in the #10 M3 failed just past the five-hour mark, while Peter Cunningham was driving. The #6 M3, with Hans Stuck at the wheel, experienced a second rear-axle failure and was out of the race after 7.5 hours. Tom Salkowsky, motorsport director, BMW of North America, Inc. "I give a lot of credit to all the members of the team. Whether it was a flat tire, CV joint or brakes, they worked diligently, quickly and really hard and never gave up until the car just couldn't move anymore. We still have some development work on the 6 car, but on the bright side of things, it really gave us an opportunity to run it for over seven hours on a course like Sebring that really beats up the team and the cars. Many teams take three, six months or a year to develop a car before they bring it to the race track. This is a car that we developed very quickly and it's out many, many months before the production M3. That says a lot about the team. There will be bumps along the way, no doubt about it, but we learned from the experience and we'll come back very hard for Charlotte." Hans Stuck, driver, #6 BMW M3 "The last stint was a pretty interesting one. We had some not-expected changes with the chassis which, in my opinion, made the car a little bit better than it was all week long. Finally, something in the rear axle broke, which we had already before. It takes about an hour to change it. We have learned a lot about the car, we made progress and now let's look forward for the next race." Peter Cunningham, driver, #10 BMW M3 "I just can't believe that we could have so many problems. The BMW Team PTG M3 has never performed better, never handled better or worked this consistently throughout a tank of gas. It's a tribute to the guys who put in a lot of effort to update this car and have it here. It's just a huge disappointment for our whole team to have this happen. But for sure, that's racing, and this is Sebring." Tom Milner, owner, BMW Team PTG "This obviously wasn't one of our best Sebring races; we won this race in 1997 and 1998. I think this new car performed well. We still have some teething problems with it, which we have to sort out, but in general it was a good test for us. We couldn't test beforehand, we had to go to a race to test it."