BMW M Motorsport and ROWE Racing launch GT3 mentoring project

BMW M Motorsport announced a GT3 mentoring project with ROWE Racing for the 2026 GT World Challenge Europe, combining experienced and young drivers in one crew.

BMW M Motorsport is placing its bet not only on speed but on knowledge transfer: for the 2026 GT World Challenge Europe season, drivers from different generations will share one cockpit, turning mentorship into a central part of the brand’s racing strategy.

At the heart of the project is the #998 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, driven by experienced works driver Jens Klingmann alongside two of the youngest BMW M drivers, Ugo de Wilde and Tim Tramnitz. Klingmann takes on a mentoring role, sharing both racing expertise and technical insight. This structure reflects BMW M’s “United by Performance” concept, where collaboration between generations is treated as a competitive asset in itself.

The initiative is carried out with ROWE Racing, a team known for its endurance racing background and its victory at the 24 Hours of Nürburgring in 2025. That context gives the project practical weight: it is not a training exercise, but a competitive programme inside one of the most demanding GT3 championships.

The crew will debut on 11 April at Paul Ricard and continue through the five-round Endurance Cup season, including the 24 Hours of Spa, widely regarded as the championship’s flagship race. These events test not only outright pace, but consistency, durability and team coordination over extended race distances.

The #998 entry competes in the Gold Cup category. The official entry list confirms a line-up of two Gold-rated drivers and one Silver-rated driver, underlining the balance between experience and development. In this class, performance is measured not only in results but also in progression over the season.

The car itself, the BMW M4 GT3 EVO, represents the latest evolution of BMW’s GT3 platform introduced in 2025. In its first season alone, it recorded around 80 wins and more than 100 additional podium finishes. Updates to aerodynamics, chassis components and efficiency were specifically designed to improve drivability and reduce wear on tyres and brakes, key factors in endurance racing.

The driver line-up highlights clear differences in experience. Klingmann has been part of BMW M Motorsport since 2014 and has more than a decade in GT racing. De Wilde joined the works programme in 2025 and already secured a GT World Challenge Europe race win, while Tramnitz enters in 2026 after finishing fourth in the FIA Formula 3 Championship.

In that sense, the #998 project aligns with BMW’s broader GEN M concept, which focuses on connecting generations within motorsport. Here, the outcome is not defined solely by finishing positions, but by how effectively experience is transferred into performance for the next wave of drivers.