BMW (Motorsport)
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BMW Motorsport began in January 1924 when designer Rudolf Schleicher set off on a route from Munich to Garmisch in a BMW R 32 . Since 1929, BMW has also been represented in a wide variety of racing series in international automobile motorsport. At times the focus was on Formula 1 , where BMW was mainly active as an engine supplier and for a short time with its own team . In addition, BMW has been involved in touring car racing in endurance racing and in the formula E . The company also operated Formula BMW as an entry-level class for formula racing and a precursor to Formula 3. In motorcycle racing , too , BMW traditionally competes in various racing classes, from 2009 to 2013 in the Superbike World Championship .
Automobile sport
Success with sports cars since 1929
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Bayerische Motorenwerke took part in motorsport with their cars early on after they began to manufacture automobiles, and achieved their first major success in 1929 when drivers Buchner, Kandt and Wagner won the team award at the 1929 International Alpine Tour with their BMW Dixi 3/15 PS . At the Eifel race in July 1930 on the Südschleife of the Nürburgring , the BMW Dixi drivers took places one to three in the class up to 750 cm³ after the initially leading DKW had already retired on lap ten. The victorious BMW drove its 25 laps or 193.675 km in 2: 31.22 hours, which corresponds to an average speed of 76.8 km / h.
Within a few years, BMW moved away from the small ¾-liter four-cylinder engine and took part in both the Feldberg and Eifel races in 1935 with the Sportroadsters 315/1 and 319/1 , in which the sports car class up to 1500 cc and the class up to 2000 cm³ drove five laps on the Nürburgring- Nordschleife . Ernst von Delius on a 319/1 with a 6-cylinder engine won his class with an average of 101.4 km / h ahead of Paul von Guilleaume on an Adler .
The BMW 319/1 was the template for the most famous BMW sports car in the period before the Second World War . The BMW 328 presented in 1936 based on the 326 car model . The 328 made its racing debut at the Eifel Race in June 1936. In rainy weather, Ernst Jakob Henne won the sports car class up to 2 liters without a compressor with an average of 101.7 km / h; his best time was 105 km / h. Further successes followed, including at the Tourist Trophy in 1936 and 1937, at the sports car race at the AVUS and as part of the German Grand Prix in 1938, at the 24-hour race of Le Mans in 1939 with a touring coupé and at the Mille Miglia 1940.
Five BMW 328s competed in the Mille Miglia , two coupés from Bayerische Motoren Werke and three roadsters as the NSKK team . The racing engines developed around 118 to 122 hp, so that the aerodynamic coupés with a weight of around 780 kg could have been up to 220 km / h. The 80 kg lighter, but less streamlined roadsters were slightly slower. The Fritz Huschke team from Hanstein / Walter Bäumer won the 1484 km race with the Coupé, chassis number 85368, in 8: 54: 46.3 hours with an average speed of 166.7 km / h. Adolf Brudes / Ralph Roese on the first 328 Roadster came third, Wilhelm Briem / Uli Richter and Hans Wencher / Rudolf Scholz with the other two came fifth and sixth. Count Giovanni Lurani / Franco Cortese's coupé failed on lap seven after a spin with a damaged oil line.
Restart after the war
From the new beginning to the 1960s
BMW automobile production after the war began in 1952 with the BMW 501 , a representative sedan that was also used in motorsport. On the winter trip to Oberstdorf from January 5 to 10, 1954, a BMW 501 achieved the best performance and at the Monte Carlo Rally from January 18 to 25, 1954, drivers Ernst Loof , Helm Glöckler and Scheube finished third in the team classification. Subsequently, BMW competed with the BMW 502, the BMW 507 and the BMW 600 in the 1958 Grand Mountain Prize of Austria on Gaisberg .
In 1959 the BMW 700 appeared , which both the factory and many private drivers used in circuit and hill climbs and with which Hans Stuck became German mountain champion in 1960.
Success with the BMW 700
From 1961, BMW started using the BMW 700 RS designed by Alex von Falkenhausen and Heinz Eppelein, a roadster with a mid-engine which, despite the fact that it was named, bore no resemblance to the production vehicle except for a few parts. Only two pieces of the light car with a tubular space frame and aluminum body, which was approved for road traffic, were built. It was first used at the Roßfeld hill climb on June 18, 1961. Walter Schneider won the German hill climb championship with the BMW 700 RS, which was also driven by Heinz Eppelein, Alex von Falkenhausen and Hans Stuck.
In 1967/68 BMW built the “Monti” on a Lola chassis, a two-seater racing car for the European Hill Climb Championship with a two-liter four-cylinder engine designed by Ludwig Apfelbeck . The Spyder, mainly driven by Dieter Quester , could not endanger Gerhard Mitter's dominating Porsche .
BMW in the European Touring Car Championship
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In 1973, BMW Motorsport GmbH, founded in 1972 - an independent motorsport company that works for BMW - won the European Touring Car Championship under race director Jochen Neerpasch with a BMW 3.0 CSL and driver Toine Hezemans . Other works drivers were Dieter Quester, Harald Menzel , Chris Amon and Hans-Joachim Stuck . Stuck / Amon won the 6-hour race on the Nürburgring on July 8, 1973 with 42 laps in 6: 03: 06.5 hours (158.5 km / h) ahead of Hezemans / Quester and the Alpina-BMW from Lauda / Joists .
Marketing director Robert A. Lutz had appointed Neerpasch, who had built up the racing department of Ford Germany in 1968, to BMW to coordinate the development of racing vehicles and racing events. Neerpasch is convinced that this task could only have been fulfilled to a limited extent within the group, so that the spin-off in the form of the independently operating motorsport company took place. 1980 Neerpasch left BMW. His successor as race director was Dieter Stappert until 1985 .
In addition to the CSL Coupés, BMW was also successful in the smaller touring car classes, especially with the BMW M 3 , which BMW Motorsport first used in March 1987 in the first race of the newly established World Touring Car Championship . The M 3 took the first six places, and Roberto Ravaglia won the title at the end of the season. In the same year, Winni Vogt was European Touring Car Champion in a BMW M 3 and Eric van de Poele German Champion. In addition, Bernhard Beguin won a rally world championship run in Corsica with the car that was not intended for this purpose. By the end of the 1992 season, BMW and various teams, as well as private drivers, had achieved over 1,500 victories with the M 3 worldwide, making it the most successful touring car in the world. The last race in 1992 was the Spa-Francorchamps 24 Hours , which Steve Soper , Christian Danner and Jean-Michael Martin from Team Fina Bastos won in front of two other M 3s.
Engagement in the brand world championship and in Le Mans
After the successes in the European Championship and the World Touring Car Championship, BMW intended to take part in the brand world championship at the end of the 1970s, which was held with racing cars in groups 4 and 5. Group 4 meant that at least 400 units had to have been built in 24 consecutive months, there was no minimum number required for Group 5 vehicles, provided that they were based on a homologated model of the lower groups. It did not seem possible to further develop the CSL Coupé for this purpose, so BMW took up a sports car project that was only a few years old and presented the BMW M 1 in 1978 .
In order to be able to show the BMW M 1 in racing from 1979 without homologation and to be able to advertise the sale of the 400 pieces, race director Neerpasch came up with the Procar series , a one-make cup as part of the Formula 1 races in which, in addition to private drivers, five Formula 1 drivers fastest in training started. 460 cars were built between July 1978 and February 1981, of which 412 were road cars. The winners of the Procar series were Niki Lauda in 1979 and Nelson Piquet in 1980 .
In the brand world championship, the M 1 competed in the 1000 km race on the Nürburgring and the 24 Hours of Le Mans . In the first race on May 25, 1980 at the Nürburgring, however, they were still classified as Group 9. The car registered by BMW Motorsport with Hans-Joachim Stuck and Nelson Piquet was third behind Rolf Stommelen / Jürgen Barth in the Porsche 908/3 and John Fitzpatrick / Axel Plankenhorn / Dick Barbour in the Porsche 935 K 3. The BMW drove the 44 laps or 1004.740 km in 5: 53: 10.20 hours.
BMW Motorsport won the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans with a BMW V12 LMR .
German Touring Car Championship (DTM)
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BMW racing cars of the type 635 CSi , 528i and 323i competed in the first race of the German Touring Car Championship in 1984 in Zolder , Belgium . All vehicles were used by smaller teams and private individuals. Among others, Hans-Joachim Stuck , Volker Strycek and Leopold Prinz von Bayern drove for the Munich team in the first DTM race in history. The race was a triple triumph for BMW; it won Harald Grohs before Udo Schneider and Volker Strycek. At the end of the season, Volker Strycek became German touring car champion . BMW repeated this success in 1987 with Eric van de Poele and in 1989 with Roberto Ravaglia . BMW won the prestigious brand championship consistently from 1984 to 1990 . At the end of the 1994 season , BMW left the DTM at the factory and did not return until the end of the series in 1996 .
When the "new" DTM ( German Touring Car Masters ) was launched in 2000 , BMW worked on the regulations, but did not take part in the competition because of its Formula 1 involvement. Since then, there has been repeated speculation about participation. However, only after BMW had sold the BMW Sauber Team back to Peter Sauber at the end of 2009 did the Board of Management confirm their return to the DTM for the 2012 season , in which BMW and Bruno Spengler won the championship and brand title.
Formula 2
From 1968 to 1984 BMW was represented in the Formula 2 European Championship . Initially, BMW had its own works team, later the company supplied engines for numerous racing teams. During this time, six drivers using BMW engines won the championship title.
Own factory team
Efforts to get involved in Formula 2 began in 1966/67 with a Lola chassis and its own 1.6-liter engine, as stipulated by the regulations. After a debut in Snetterton marked by technical difficulties , the new cars were to start in Germany for the first time on April 23, 1967 in the Eifel race at the Nürburgring. Jo Siffert and Hubert Hahne were registered as works drivers and John Surtees and Chris Irwin on two private Lola BMWs. Siffert set the fastest time in the second practice session, but the BMW board of directors nevertheless canceled his participation out of fear of another debacle. Paul G. Hahnemann only changed the decision shortly before the race so that the drivers could compete. Surtees was second, Hahne fourth and Irwin seventh.
At the Grand Prix of Germany in 1968 launched Hubert Hahne in a BMW Formula 2 cars with 2-liter engine and was ranked ten with 1: 57.9 minutes behind behind Dan Gurney in Gurney Eagle. This relatively good placement of the vehicle, which was inferior in terms of performance in the Formula 1 car field, was due on the one hand to Hahn's driving performance, but above all to the extreme rain during this race.
On April 19, 1969, BMW presented a new Formula 2 car with a Dornier chassis in monocoque design . At the Eifel race on April 27th, Siffert and Hahne were supposed to start again with the improved Lola-BMW and BMW T102 from the previous year, Mitter with the new car. BMW racing director Klaus Steinmetz said before the world premiere in the Eifel that it was not to be expected that the Bayerische Motoren Werke would “tear up trees right away” because the development of a formula racing car would take some time. Siffert was second, Hahne fourth and at the end of the season Vice European Champion in Formula 2. Mitter with the new BMW F 269 gave up after the sixth lap because the steering became increasingly difficult to operate. During training for the German Grand Prix on August 1, 1969, he had a fatal accident with the F 269. Looking back, Klaus Steinmetz attributed the accident to an incorrectly installed steering system. BMW then withdrew the other two cars.
Even before the start of the Formula 2 European Championship in 1970 , BMW management had decided to end the factory Formula 2 commitment at the end of 1970. For the last season of the works team, BMW developed the F 269 further into the F 270 . The Belgian racing driver Jackie Ickx had a decisive influence on the development of the F 270. He also competed in a number of Formula 2 races for BMW. As a so-called graded driver , he was excluded from the championship standings. At the Tulln-Langenlebarn airfield race , he scored BMW's first Formula 2 victory, and at the end of the season Quester won the second championship race for BMW at the Baden-Württemberg and Hesse Prize . In addition, there were several victories in Formula 2 races during the season that were not part of the championship. Quester finished fourth in the championship at the end of the season. Regardless of these successes, the management stuck to the decision to leave Formula 2. It was justified with the need to use all of our energy for the development of series vehicles.
Engine supplier
The Formula 2 engines from BMW continued to be successful even after the end of the BMW works team.
The British designer March had an exclusive contract with BMW and from 1973 only used BMW engines in the Formula 2 cars of his works team that were serviced by BMW until 1982. The drivers of the March works team won the Formula 2 with BMW engines in 1973 ( Jean-Pierre Jarier ), 1974 ( Patrick Depailler ), 1978 ( Bruno Giacomelli ), 1979 ( Marc Surer ) and 1982 ( Corrado Fabi ) European Championship.
From 1974 the BMW engine was also available for other teams. In contrast to the March works team, the customer engines were not prepared by BMW itself, but by independent tuners such as Mader in Switzerland, Heidegger in Liechtenstein or Osella and Amaroli in Italy. The BMW engine quickly became the most widespread drive unit in European Formula 2. It replaced the Ford -BDA engine from the early 1960s , which from 1975 onwards was only used sporadically by some British teams. 1975 won Jacques Laffite with a BMW engine customers in a martini European Championship.
In individual years BMW faced strong competition from other engine manufacturers: in 1976 and 1977, for example, the championship went to drivers with Renault engines ( Jean-Pierre Jabouille and René Arnoux ), in 1980 the Toleman team won the championship with a Hart engine, and In 1981 , 1983 and 1984 Honda's six-cylinder engine dominated. Regardless of this, until the end of the series at the end of 1984, most Formula 2 drivers used BMW engines, which, according to observers, were still "the benchmark for the competition". BMW engines were also widely used in the Japanese Formula 2 Championship . They ran there until 1986.
BMW no longer took part in the successor series to Formula 2, the International Formula 3000 Championship introduced in 1985 ; it was reserved for the Cosworth DFV engines that had previously been used in Formula 1.
formula 1
Engine supplier at the beginning of the turbo era
On April 24, 1980, BMW announced that it would supply engines for Formula 1 in the future, and in the following two years Paul Rosche developed a new 1.5-liter engine from a four-cylinder engine with four-valve technology and an exhaust gas turbocharger based on a series block. Racing engine. Development partner for the electronics was Bosch and Brabham with Bernie Ecclestone first purchaser of the engine after a deal with Talbot had failed. The first test drives with the engine in a Brabham chassis took place in October 1980; The racing premiere was on January 23, 1982 in Kyalami ; both cars with piquet and patrese were canceled.
The engine initially developed around 650 hp . Later it was briefly up to 1400 hp in the qualification trim.
On June 13, 1982 Nelson Piquet won the Canadian Grand Prix with the BMW engine. In 1983 Brabham and BMW won the first world championship title with a turbo engine. Ferrari had achieved the first constructors' title with a turbo engine the year before, the 1982 season .
The curve of success flattened out quickly, however, as more advanced turbo engines from TAG - Porsche and Honda could be found in the competition from 1984/85 . BMW supplied Brabham with engines until 1987 , but without playing a serious role again in the fight for the world championship. In addition to Brabham, ATS , Arrows Benetton and Ligier also drove with BMW engines at times. After the official withdrawal of BMW, the engines ran under Megatron in 1988 , the name of a subsidiary of the US insurance company United States Fidelity & Guaranty, which had the engines prepared for racing at Mader in Switzerland . In the period from 1982 to 1987, BMW-powered vehicles achieved a total of nine wins, 13 pole positions and 14 fastest race laps.
Return after a break of 12 years
Just three years after retiring from Formula 1, BMW was considering returning with its own works team. In 1990, BMW had two chassis built by Simtek in Great Britain, but initially decided against Formula 1. The Simtek cars were used unsuccessfully in 1992 by the Italian team Andrea Moda with the type designation S921 .
In 2000 , BMW returned to Formula 1 as an engine supplier ( BMW E41 / 4 ) to the Williams team. The drivers Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya achieved some successes - the world championship was not won until the end of the partnership with the successful British team in 2005. Montoya was close to it in 2003 , but lost the connection to the eventual world champion Michael Schumacher in the final spurt of the season . However, ten victories as well as 17 first starting positions and fastest racing laps date from this time.
BMW mainly blamed Williams for the failed summit attack. While the BMW unit was recognized as one of the most powerful engines in the field every year, the English racing team did not succeed in designing a chassis suitable for the world championship. The lack of a say in vehicle planning by the automotive company ultimately led BMW to the conclusion that it would compete as its own team and thus not just build the engine for the first time. The Sauber team, which was increasingly pushed into the role of outsider due to the increased factory involvement of major automobile manufacturers , offered itself up for sale. BMW took over the majority of the Swiss racing team in autumn 2005 and from the 2006 season appeared as an independent team under the name BMW Sauber F1 . In the second year of Formula 1 involvement, the team took second place in the constructors' championship, and in 2008 it was third. At the end of the 2009 season , which the team finished sixth in the constructors' championship, BMW ended its Formula 1 involvement after having achieved just one victory in four years. At the end of 2009, Peter Sauber bought the team back.
Motorcycling
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In October 1923, Bayerische Motorenwerke presented their first motorcycle at the Paris Motor Show, the BMW R 32 with a longitudinally installed two - cylinder boxer engine and a shaft instead of a chain to transmit the drive force from the gearbox to the rear wheel. Just a quarter of a year later, the designer Rudolf Schleicher won the motorcycle class on a route trip from Munich to Garmisch for BMW and set the fastest time on a mountain test. BMW drivers achieved further successes with the revised R 32 at the Solitude hill climb and at the AVUS .
In June 1924, the BMW racing driver Franz Bieber won the 500 cc class of the first German motorcycle road championship of the ADAC on an R 37 . In this and the following year, the ADAC and the DMV held separate championships. The ADAC determined the German champions in 1924 in just one race as part of the Schleizer triangle race on the Schleizer triangle . A few weeks later, Bieber also won the Eifel Tour around Nideggen in the motorcyclist class up to 500 cm³. Ten laps over a total of 330 km had to be covered in adverse weather. Bieber drove the distance in 4:56:09 hours or with an average of 66.9 km / h.
With the BMW R 37 sports machine designed by Rudolf Schleicher , the factory and private drivers won many races and two championship titles in 1925, including the Eifel Tour, this time Toni Bauhofer with 69.9 km / h and a narrow lead over a Moto Guzzi and another BMW finished first. The winner of the 1926 Eifel Tour was Ernst Jakob Henne , who needed 3:35:59 hours for eight laps and was 73.3 km / h. The class up to 500 cm³ in the motorcycle race for the opening of the Nürburgring on June 18, 1927 also won Bauhofer in a BMW.
For BMW it was particularly important in the early days to draw attention to the new brand by participating in motorsport events and to prove the reliability that was emphasized in the advertising through victories. Accordingly, a poster for the 1925 German Motor Show in Berlin read: "BMW - The most successful and most reliable German motorcycle"
In the middle of the 1930 season, however, BMW dissolved the racing department and from then on only occasionally took part in competitions with factory machines. One of the reasons for the withdrawal was possibly the failure at the Eifel race in July, when the BMW motorcycles failed due to crashes and defects. In addition, Rudolf Schleicher had already gone to Horch in 1927 after disputes with the technical director Max Friz . Schleicher's request to invest more money in the development of racing machines had triggered the rift. The main reason for the drastic reduction in sports activities, however, is likely to have been the global economic crisis .
Speed records for prestige and sales
In advertising, the focus was now on speed and no longer on reliability. "BMW - fastest motorcycle in the world" and "24 world records" were the words on the posters that were primarily directed against the competition from England after John Baldwin had exceeded the 200 km / h limit with a motorcycle in 1928. Ernst Jakob Henne went on a record hunt for BMW and drove an average of 216.5 km / h on September 19, 1929. On September 30, 1930, it increased to 221.539 km / h with a partially faired 750 cc machine and after several other successful attempts finally achieved it on November 28, 1937 on the autobahn south of Frankfurt with a fully faired 500 cc supercharged BMW 279.443 km / h. This record lasted 14 years until Wilhelm Herz reached 290 km / h on the NSU in 1951.
- Average speeds of Ernst Jakob Henne during record drives in a BMW
| date | place | speed |
|---|---|---|
| September 19, 1929 | Country road near Ingolstadt | 216.500 km / h |
| September 30, 1930 | k. A. | 221.539 km / h |
| April 1931 | Vienna | 238.250 km / h |
| November 3, 1932 | k. A. | 244.399 km / h |
| 1934 | Győr, Hungary | 246.016 km / h |
| 1935 | Frankfurt – Darmstadt motorway | 256.040 km / h |
| October 1936 | k. A. | 272.146 km / h |
| November 28, 1937 | Autobahn south of Frankfurt | 279.433 km / h |
From 1933 until the war
The period after 1933 (the time of National Socialism ) brought many companies a questionable boom. BMW also benefited from the development, received orders from government agencies and, among other things, built teams with machine gun mounts on the sidecar. But the development department kept itself as free as possible from National Socialist influences and continued to work on the civilian models. Nevertheless, in 1935 the sale of motorcycles to authorities and the military accounted for almost half of the total production, so that BMW, with an annual production of around 10,000 units in Germany, was in fifth place behind DKW , NSU , Express and Zündapp . In the class over 350 cm³, BMW was even the market leader. Rudolf Schleicher had meanwhile returned to BMW as head of the Munich automobile and motorcycle plant.
The German Grand Prix at AVUS in 1933 and the AVUS race in 1935, in which Wiggerl Kraus drove a machine with two overhead camshafts per cylinder and with a compressor for the first time , were among the few races in which BMW participated . The double tube frame instead of the pressed steel frame introduced in 1929 and an oil-dampened telescopic fork were also new. After that, the new motorcycle could be seen at the six-day trip in Oberstdorf and in 1936 as the BMW R 5 at the Berlin auto and motorcycle exhibition , but with the usual OHV engine .
Another milestone in BMW motorcycle manufacturing in 1937 was the rear wheel suspension, a straight-line suspension that Alex von Falkenhausen developed and tested himself in an R 5 on a six-day drive before it was installed in all racing machines. In 1938 the rear wheel suspension went into series production with the R 51 (500 cm³) and R 66 (600 cm³) models. With the RS 500 supercharged racing machine, type 255, and an output of around 55-60 hp, Schorsch Meier, previously known as an off-road driver, won the European Champion title in 1938 in the class up to 500 cm³, which was awarded for the first time on points from several races . In 1939 Meier won the Tourist Trophy on the Isle of Man , the most dangerous motorcycle race in the world. He drove the seven laps or 425 km of the Senior TT in the class up to 500 cm³ in 2:57:19 hours, which results in an average of 143.8 km / h. BMW had registered two more drivers for the Tourist Trophy, the Englishman Jock West, who finished second, and the long-time works driver Karl Gall . Gall fell in training and succumbed to his injuries eleven days later. Meier also fell at the Swedish Grand Prix, but survived the accident with several broken bones.
From a new beginning after the war to the 1960s
After the war, private drivers revived racing in Germany. This also included BMW drivers Schorsch Meier, Georg Eberlein and Wiggerl Kraus, who initially contested the national races with the compressor machines of the late 1930s. BMW set up a new racing department in 1948, but closed it in 1955 and in future limited itself to supporting certain drivers.
From 1951, German racing drivers were allowed to take part in international races again, but motorcycles with the supercharged engines, which had been banned by the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) since 1946, were no longer eligible to compete. For this reason, BMW converted the pre-war RS and used it without a compressor with an output reduced to 43 hp. Walter Zeller was German champion in the class up to 500 cm³ in 1951 after Schorsch Meier had also won the title on a BMW between 1947 and 1950. Although BMW were mostly inferior to the factory machines of Gilera , MV Agusta and Norton in the solo classes of the international races , Schorsch Meier won the Eifel race in 1951 ahead of Walter Zeller - both BMW - ahead of Karl Rührschneck on Norton.
BMW RS 54
In addition to the touring motorcycles, BMW also showed a new racing machine at IFMA 1953 in Frankfurt, which became known as the BMW RS 54 . This model, which already appeared as a factory machine in 1951/52, was built in an edition of 24 pieces for selected private drivers. Like the factory machines, the RS 54, which was available from 1954, had the two-cylinder boxer engine with two overhead camshafts per cylinder driven by a vertical shaft, a double tubular frame and a front and rear wheel swing arm, after the model exhibited at IFMA still had a telescopic fork. The 492 cm³ long-stroke engine (bore 66 mm, stroke 72 mm) made 50 hp at 8500 rpm and a compression ratio of 10: 1. The machine weighed 132 kg dry, was 2030 mm long and had a wheelbase of 1370 mm.
The factory machines largely corresponded to the commercial version, but received a short-stroke motor with a bore of 70 mm and a stroke of 64 mm. The power with carburetors was given with 58 HP at 9000 / min, with gasoline injection it should have been 61 HP. The crankcase was made of magnesium , the cylinders were cast from an aluminum alloy. There were also variations in the chassis, either with a cardan shaft running in the swing arm or a free-running cardan shaft and a separate swing arm.
From 1953 to 1959 BMW won the German championship title of the 500cc solo machines seven times in a row with Meier, Zeller and Ernst Hiller, and in 1955 Walter Zeller was vice world champion.
Team class domain of BMW
BMW teams based on the RS 54 won the world championship title in motorcycle road racing 14 times in uninterrupted succession from 1954 to 1967 and then five times until 1974 . In 1954 under Wilhelm Noll / Fritz Cron, the RS essentially corresponded to the solo machine, with the exception of the sidecar, with roughly the same saddle height and initially also without cladding. As the season progressed, the motorcycles were more and more disguised. The “body” of the BMW team comprised the motorcycle and sidecar. The cooling air reached the engine through two openings below a large windshield and in the sides next to the cylinder. There was another opening deep between the motorcycle and the sidecar. In Monza on September 12, 1954, Noll / Cron won the distance of 100.8 km in the record time of 40: 19.1 minutes or with an average of 149.968 km / h. They drove their fastest lap at 153.243 km / h. Three other BMW teams took third to fifth place. The 1954 World Championship won Noll / Cron with 30 points ahead of Eric Oliver on Norton with 26 points.
On October 4, 1955, Wilhelm Noll set the absolute speed record for three-wheeled vehicles over a kilometer and a mile on the autobahn between Munich and Ingolstadt at 280 km / h on a fully faired 500 cm³ BMW.
In the years that followed, the motorbikes in the sidecar were increasingly lowered by adapting the frame and the wheels accordingly, but initially mostly still ridden while sitting, like the RS 54 by Max Deubel , who at the beginning of the 1960s with Emil Hörner and Barry Dungsworth co-drivers won the World Championship four times and, with horns, the Tourist Trophy on the Isle of Man three times. Almost at the same time, however, the "Kneeler", which was driven in a prone position, became known as it was built by Helmut Fath in 1956 and successfully used with a BMW engine.
Paris – Dakar rally
Long-distance drives and off-road tests have always been part of BMW's motorsport program, and the Paris – Dakar rally was not missing . In 1980, BMW officially started the 8,000 km journey with two BMW GSs for the first time, most of which led through the African desert. The drivers were the Frenchman Hubert Auriol , whose operation a blocking gearbox prematurely ended, and a journalist with the pseudonym Fenouil, who came fifth.
In 1981 Auriol won the Dakar. HPN-Motorradtechnik , a company specializing in the refinement of BMW models, had prepared the machine with an engine that had been reamed to almost 800 cm³ and an output of 55 hp. In the following year, team boss Dietmar Beinhauer withdrew the BMWs after half the distance, among other things because of gearbox damage. 1983 Auriol won for the second time. In 1984 the Belgian Gaston Rahier won over Auriol with a 70 hp 1000cc model and repeated this success in 1985. The BMW works team then withdrew from the Dakar.
BMW in the Superbike World Championship
From 2009 to 2013 BMW took part in the Superbike World Championship with factory drivers . The reason for this was to demonstrate the sportiness and competitiveness of BMW motorcycles using the example of the BMW S 1000 RR presented in 2009 in racing. The S 1000 RR is a motorcycle with a transversely installed four-cylinder in-line engine and chain drive instead of the cardan shaft typical of BMW for a long time. The engine with a displacement of 1000 cm³ produced 142 kW or 193 hp as standard when it was launched.
Factory driver Troy Corser reached pole position once as early as 2010 and came third in San Marino and Italy. In the same season Ayrton Badovini won the FIM Superstock 1000 Cup . In 2011 , after three further placements among the top three, the first victory followed, followed by six wins by Marco Melandri and Leon Haslam in 2012 as well as the second title win in the FIM Superstock 1000 Cup with Sylvain Barrier.
In 2013 , BMW ended its factory involvement in the Superbike World Championship with third place in the manufacturers' championship and six wins for Marco Melandri and Chaz Davies. Barrier won the Superstock 1000 Cup again with a BMW HP4 .
Records on the water
In 1968 Dieter Quester set speed records for motor boats of the E1 class over 1 km, 1 hour and 24 nautical miles with a BMW engine.
literature
- Jochen Neerpasch, Jürgen Lewandowski: BMW M1. The story. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2008, ISBN 978-3-7688-2512-2 .
- Stefan Knittel: BMW touring and sports cars. (Profile series). Egmont Vgs, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8025-1622-1 .
- Stefan Knittel: BMW Profiles. Volume 6: Formula racing 1966–2000: A documentation. Heel, 2000, ISBN 3-932169-07-7 .
- Jess McAree: BMW Motorsport. 2000 season: the return. Heel 2001, ISBN 3-89365-952-8 .
- Christoph Schulte, Fred Kräling: Fast Track to Success: BMW Season 2001. Heel 2001, ISBN 3-89365-951-X .
- Rolf Heggen: The fascination of the racetrack. BMW and motorsport. Econ 1983, ISBN 3-430-14195-8 .
- Karl H. Hufstadt: BMW Portraits: Paul Rosche. A brilliant engine designer. Egmont Vgs, 2003, ISBN 3-8025-1520-X .
- Burkhard Nadolny: world records, sporting successes, 50 years of BMW . Munich 1966.
Web links
- BMW Motorsport website. bmw-motorsport.com, accessed November 24, 2012 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g Ingo Seiff: BMW - The pleasure of driving . Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-5374-3 .
- ↑ a b c d e f Michael Behrndt, Jörg-Thomas Födisch, Matthias Behrndt: ADAC Eifelrennen . Heel Verlag, Königswinter 2009, ISBN 978-3-86852-070-5 .
- ^ Motor Klassik, issue 4/1988, Vereinigte Motorverlage, Stuttgart, p. 21 u. 22nd
- ↑ a b ADAC and AvD (ed.): Internationaler Motorsport . Yearbook. Europa-Contact-Verlag, Döffingen 1954, OCLC 31407715 .
- ^ Wolfgang Thierack: Racing legend Willi Martini . Schneider Text Editions, Ireland 2004, ISBN 0-9541746-5-8 .
- ↑ a b c d Jonathan Wood: German automobiles . Unipart-Verlag, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-8122-0184-4 .
- ^ Program booklet for the 1974 Touring Car Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. Edited by ADAC Saarland.
- ^ Rhein-Zeitung, Koblenz, July 9, 1973.
- ↑ powerslide , Issue 4/2009, Petropics, Bonn, pp. 78-81.
- ↑ powerslide , issue 8/2010, Petrolpics, Bonn, p. 91 and 92.
- ↑ Michael Behrndt, Jörg-Thomas Födisch, Matthias Behrndt: ADAC 1000 km race. Heel Verlag, Königswinter 2008, ISBN 978-3-89880-903-0 .
- ↑ BMW: Entry planned for 2012! motorsport-total.com, April 29, 2010, accessed November 24, 2012 .
- ↑ auto motor und sport , issue 17/1968, p. 44.
- ↑ a b auto motor und sport , issue 10/1969.
- ↑ Program for the 32nd International ADAC Eifel Race in 1969.
- ↑ a b c Eberhard Reuß, Ferdi Kräling: Formula 2. The story from 1964 to 1984 , Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2014, ISBN 978-3-7688-3865-8 , p. 70.
- ^ Siegfried C. Strasser: Racing legend Gerhard Mitter . Schneider Media, Portsmouth 2010, ISBN 978-3-931824-43-3 .
- ↑ auto motor und sport , issues 24 and 26/1970.
- ↑ Eberhard Reuß, Ferdi Kräling: Formula 2. The story from 1964 to 1984. Delius Klasing, Bielefeld 2014, ISBN 978-3-7688-3865-8 , p. 71.
- ↑ a b Title win in record time. bmw-motorsport.com, archived from the original on April 10, 2009 ; Retrieved November 24, 2012 .
- ↑ First victory in the premier class. bmw-motorsport.com, archived from the original on November 10, 2009 ; Retrieved November 24, 2012 .
- ↑ Christopher Hilton: 1982: The Inside Story of the Sensational Grand Prix Season . Haynes Publishing, Sparkford 2007, ISBN 978-1-84425-404-0 .
- ^ Alan Henry: Autocourse 1992/93 London 1992 (Hazleton Securities Ltd.), ISBN 0-905138-96-1 , p. 88.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Wolfgang Zeyen, Jan Leek: BMW - The motorcycles since 1923 . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-613-02401-2 .
- ↑ 90 years of BMW Motorrad - BMW goes to the racetrack with the R 38 ... (No longer available online.) Www.bmw-motorrad.at, February 2, 2013, archived from the original on March 5, 2016 ; Retrieved June 29, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Jürgen Müller: The history of the Schleizer triangle race. (No longer available online.) Www.pro-schleizer-dreieck.de, archived from the original on February 22, 2014 ; Retrieved April 14, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Dorothea Briel: BMW - The motorcycles. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-552-05084-1 .
- ^ A b c Karl-Heinz Edler, Wolfgang Roediger: The German racing vehicles . Fachbuchverlag, Leipzig 1956, ISBN 3-343-00435-9 .
- ↑ Perform magic and drive. In: Der Spiegel. Issue 45/1948. Accessed May 20, 2014.
- ↑ Motorsport statistics ( Memento of the original from May 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Accessed May 22, 2014.
- ↑ Winni-Scheibe on Helmut Fath . Accessed May 22, 2014.
- ↑ BMW Motorrad on the Superbike World Championship. Accessed May 25, 2014.
- ↑ Short biography of Dieter ("Quastl") Quester on the website "bmw-grouparchiv.de" (accessed on October 2, 2014) ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 48 ° 10 ′ 37 ″ N , 11 ° 33 ′ 34 ″ E