BMW had reached out to Magnussen in 2023, earlier than Haas retained him for an additional season, however BMW swooped in when Haas stated it was not renewing his contract for 2025.
“If you end up working in motorsport at such a excessive degree, particularly Method 1, for 10 years, that is positively one thing which is already an enormous asset,” Andreas Roos, the top of BMW M Motorsport, stated in an interview. “He can deliver this information, work angle and all the pieces; if you handle to remain on this excessive competitors for such a very long time then you might be top-of-the-line racers on this planet, then on prime together with his expertise additionally in sports activities automotive racing for us it was an ideal match.”
Roos expects Magnussen to “adapt in a short time” to the BMW M Hybrid V8, although he factors to the collaborative nature of sports activities automotive racing as one space by which Magnussen might want to readjust. At Daytona, which begins on Thursday, he’ll share driving duties within the No. 24 BMW with Philipp Eng, Dries Vanthoor and Raffaele Marciello.
“You drive collectively along with your teammates, so that you don’t have your automotive on your personal, you at all times must discover a little bit of a compromise,” Roos stated. “In the long run, there are 4 drivers within the automotive, and all people has his personal thought and, let’s say, ‘fine-tuning.’ However on the finish, the fellows must work as a crew and discover the quickest compromise the place they’ll drive rapidly with the automotive and have a successful bundle on the finish.”
BMW has two IMSA wins since its program started in 2023 and had its first end on the rostrum in W.E.C. in late 2024.
“Clearly our mind-set is successful the race,” Roos stated. “We need to win the race — we need to win each race. We aren’t there simply to be a automotive on the grid, we need to be aggressive and win races. It’s clearly our objective. It’s our third 24-hour race in Daytona, we did fairly some enhancements particularly within the second half of the season in W.E.C. and likewise in IMSA.”
