BMW M Team RLL Ready To Begin Sprint Season At Long Beach; Single BMW M4 GT3 Entry For Remainder of Season.

Woodcliff Lake, N.J. – April 5, 2022 . . . Connor De Phillippi and John Edwards will co-drive the GT Pro class No. 25 BMW M Team RLL BMW M4 GT3 in the 100-minute Long Beach Grand Prix race on April 9^th, the shortest IMSA race of the season.  BMW M Team RLL will also focus on a single entry for the remainder of 2022.

BMW M Team RLL has tallied eight podium finishes, including three victories (2011, 2013, and 2015) at Long Beach. The event was canceled in 2020 and the team did not enter the race last season as it focused only on the Michelin Endurance Cup races.

“We will be a one-car team at Long Beach, which is new for us as we’ve always been a two-car team with BMW M Motorsport,” said Bobby Rahal, Team Principal.

“Nevertheless, we feel pretty good about our potential performance at Long Beach. At Sebring we were more competitive than we had been at Daytona, and I think some of the issues that we suffered from at Daytona were solved and the pace was good. Going into Long Beach we have to feel optimistic. The Corvettes certainly had the answer to anybody’s challenge in the race, but I think the M4 certainly is suited better maybe than the M8 or M6 there, which were quite big cars. I think the M4 is going to be a lot more suitable for the Long Beach track. I have to say I am optimistic but of course this race is always about grid and track position, number one, but it’s also about staying out of trouble and not hitting walls. There’s not much margin for error at Long Beach so a lot goes into a strong run, but we’ve had good performances, both in qualifying and the race, over the years and I don’t see any reason we can’t have the same again.”

Connor  De Phillippi (BMW M Team RLL, No. 25 MOTUL BMW M4 GT3): – “After two years of not racing at my home race, I’m excited to be back on a street course with our new M4 GT3. With the improvements over our previous generation car, I’m optimistic that we can have a very competitive weekend and finally get our season off to the start we‘ve wanted!”

 John Edwards (BMW M Team RLL, No. 25 MOTUL BMW M4 GT3): – “We are coming up on the sprint races that take up the bulk of our season, starting with the shortest race of the season in Long Beach! The race was canceled in 2020 and we didn’t participate in 2021 so I am thrilled to finally be heading back to the only street course we get to race. Racing between the walls puts extra pressure on us and it always makes for a really intense race, so I am looking forward to it.”

Two BMW Customer Racing teams will line up in the GTD class. The New Jersey-based Paul Miller Racing joined Turner Motorsport at Sebring and both teams wasted no time in showing what the all-new BMW M4 GT3 is capable of. Madison Snow and Bryan Sellers will co-drive the No. 1 Paul Miller machine. Bill Auberlen, who will be inducted into the Long Beach Motorsport Walk of Fame prior to the weekend, will co-drive the No. 96 Turner Motorsport M4 GT3 with Robby Foley.

Practice and qualifying will be held on Friday, April 8^th. The one-hour-and-forty-minute street race will take the green flag at 2:05 p.m. PT and coverage on USA Network will begin at 5:00 p.m. ET. IMSA Radio also provides a flag-to-flag broadcast.

BMW Group In America

BMW of North America, LLC has been present in the United States since 1975. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars NA, LLC began distributing vehicles in 2003. The BMW Group in the United States has grown to include marketing, sales, and financial service organizations for the BMW brand of motor vehicles, including motorcycles, the MINI brand, and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars; Designworks, a strategic design consultancy based in California; a technology office in Silicon Valley and various other operations throughout the country. BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC in South Carolina is the BMW Group global center of competence for BMW X models and manufactures the X3, X4, X5, X6 and X7 Sports Activity Vehicles. The BMW Group sales organization is represented in the U.S. through networks of 350 BMW passenger car and BMW Sports Activity Vehicle centers,146 BMW motorcycle retailers, 105 MINI passenger car dealers, and 38 Rolls-Royce Motor Car dealers. BMW (US) Holding Corp., the BMW Group’s sales headquarters for North America, is located in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing

BMW’s partner, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, based in Indianapolis, Indiana and co-owned by three-time INDYCAR Champion and 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal, former CBS Late Show host David Letterman and Mi-Jack co-owner Mike Lanigan, has been competing for over three decades. Prior to the start of their 31st season of competition in 2022, the team had compiled 54 victories, 66 poles, 222 podium finishes, three series championships (1992, 2010, 2011), claimed two Indianapolis 500 victories (Buddy Rice in 2004, Takuma Sato in 2020) and two Rolex 24 at Daytona victories. In 2009 the team joined BMW of North America to campaign the new BMW M3 in the American Le Mans Series. The following year the team won both the Manufacturer and Team Championships in the GT category and swept all three GT titles - Manufacturer, Team, and Driver – in 2011. In 2012, the team finished second in the Team Championship and third in the Manufacturer Championship and in 2013, the team finished second in the Driver, Team, and Manufacturer Championship. From 2014 to 2021, BMW Team RLL competed in the GTLM class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with a two-car program and brought their total to 22 wins – including the 2019 and 2020 Rolex 24 at Daytona endurance races, 28

poles and 94 podium finishes prior to the start of the 2022 season. The team earned

second-place finishes in the Manufacturer, Team, and Driver championships in 2015 and 2017 and were the 2020 Michelin North American Endurance Champions. For 2022, BMW M Team RLL will compete in the GTD Pro class while simultaneously ramping up for a two-car program in the much-anticipated LMDh class of IMSA for 2023.

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Journalist note: Information about BMW Group and its products in the USA is available to journalists on-line at www.bmwusanews.com and www.press.bmwgroup.com/usa. 

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