Vanthoor: ‘Impossible to Fight’ With Late-Race Nose Issue

Photo: Brandon Badraoui/IMSA

Dries Vanthoor said he experienced “massive bouncing” as an issue with the nose of his BMW M Hybrid V8 struck and ended his victory challenge in the closing hour of the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Vanthoor was battling the pair of Porsche Penske Motorsport entries for a spot on the top three in the 63rd running of the Florida endurance classic until the front of the No. 24 car became visibly loose.

The problem worsened to the point where he was forced to give up the battle and pit for a new nose with just over 30 minutes remaining, after which he recovered to fourth in the car he shared with Kevin Magnussen, Philipp Eng and Raffaele Marciello.

The Belgian described the issue as “very uncomfortable’ in the cockpit, as the loose nose resulted in what he said was “massive bouncing.”

“I still have a massive headache,” Vanthoor said.

“I hope all my teeth are still at the same spot. No, but that was very uncomfortable and it was impossible to drive. It was also impossible to fight them and to keep them behind.

“Even though at that stage the gap was staying quite similar and I was even catching at the end, but the amount of risk I had to take to to do it was I couldn’t keep up doing it myself.

“I could not keep them behind if there would be another restart. Then unfortunately you got this bouncing and you’re just a passenger.

“I locked almost every corner I braked for and it’s just very difficult to control. Then unfortunately I had a slight contact with the No. 6 at the restart and then this just fully broke the splitter.

“We need to investigate where the bouncing came from.

“Because before that, the only contact there was, was myself in the pit lane at the beginning of the race, which was just a kiss. We just need to investigate if that did more damage.”

While Vanthoor did make contact with the No. 021 Triarsi Competizione Ferrari 296 GT3 of James Calado, the BMW factory driver downplayed suggestions that that impact was a leading cause of the problem that followed.

“It was more side contact,” he said.

“That was no splitter contact. Other than that, it’s difficult to say really what could have been and what should have been.

“It’s just a pity that we got this massive bouncing issue and made us you know fight with one leg, kind of.”

BMW M Motorsport director Andreas Roos went into further detail on the problem, noting the the bouncing was the result of a rapid fluctuation in front downforce levels due to the issue occurring.

“Something broke in the front nose, so the front diffuser was not properly attached anymore to the nose and then started bouncing,” Roos said.

“At the end, the whole car starts bouncing [because] at one stage, you generate downforce and [then not].

“And then I think also the touch and everything didn’t help. Then at one stage it completely collapsed.

“You have the cone, the front nose that you take off. And there are some fixation points, they broke.

“But we have to analyze it now in detail what exactly. We just saw that it was not attached anymore properly and that’s why we changed the complete nose.”

While Roos recognised the strides that BMW made in what was its most competitive showing at the Rolex 24 to date, he also admitted that the brand was left disappointed that it was left without a top-three finish to show for it.

“I don’t want to say the race weekend was disappointing,” he said.

“The result at the end was disappointing because everything what we did up to the last hour or something worked pretty well and I think we showed again a big improvement of the car.

“We had a very competitive car which was able to fight for the victory. This we have to take, it’s a positive.

“But still you come here, you want to win and when you have a car which is for more than 23 hours able to fight for the top position, then at least you want to take a trophy back home.”