BMW Motorrad team wins Open Class at Le Mans 24 Hour race

The BMW Motorrad Motorsport team are celebrating after the R 1200 S took the
Open class win and a very creditable 16th place overall at the weekend's 30th
24 Hours Le Mans race, marking BMW's return to competitive road racing after a
50-year absence.


Despite being down on power compared to their rivals, the number 17 team of
Marcus Barth, Thomas Hinterreiter and Rico Penzkofer completed 776 laps of the
2.65 mile Bugatti circuit, coming home in 16th place overall in front of 90,000
motorcycle race fans.


The R 1200 S sports boxer not only took 16th overall in this hard-fought 24
Hour endurance event, but also powered home to win the Open Class category.
The race was won by the Suzuki Endurance Race Team, who completed 818 laps by
the chequered flag. SERT's sister team come home in second place, while in
third was the Team Kawasaki France factory squad, which included British rider
Steve Plater.
From a total of 56 teams who started the punishing event, only 34 reached the
finish line, marking a 60% survival rate, which makes the achievement of the
BMW Motorrad Motorsports team all the more impressive.
Director of BMW Motorrad Motorsport, Berti Hauser, was delighted with the team'
s first official outing and believes that fans can expect more of the same
throughout 2007: "After five years of the Boxer Cup, we wanted a new challenge
and we also wanted to give something back to the fans. We wanted to participate
in a major race but knew we couldn't do Superbike with this bike (because of
the regulations) so we chose what is probably the toughest discipline of all -
endurance!"

"Le Mans is probably the most famous and also the toughest endurance race on
the calendar, and with many strong teams participating, we knew it wasn't going
to be easy. However, I never expected we'd finish in the top 16 and I am both
happy and delighted with this performance. The team's motivation and spirit has
been super throughout and this result is a great reward for everybody's hard
work and commitment. We've learnt so much just from being part of this race and
we've got a lot of ideas to work on that I know will help us improve the bike
even more for the next challenge."
This season the BMW Motorrad Motorsports team will enter a total of four
24-hour races. In addition to Le Mans, the team will contest the 24-hour races
of Barcelona over July 7th/8th the Oschersleben round over the 11th/12th of
August and the famous Bol d'Or at Magny Cours on 15th/16th of September.