IMSA: BMW Team RLL confirms lineups as marque's 2016 GT program is revealed

BMW Motorsport used its traditional season review event at the BMW Museum in Munich to confirm its lineups for the GT Le Mans class in next year's IMSA WeatherTech Championship with a pair of upgraded GT3 cars, which have been allowed into the series to compete against the new-rules GTE machinery.

The full-time driver lineup for BMW Team RLL's eighth season with BMW in North America is unchanged for 2016, as Bill Auberlen will partner Dirk Werner and John Edwards will share with Lucas Luhr.

Augusto Farfus, Bruno Spengler and IndyCar ace Graham Rahal, son of team boss Bobby Rahal, will join the lineup at the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona in January. Kuno Wittmer, who won the 2014 United SportsCar Championship GTLM crown with Dodge, will race with Rahal at Daytona, the Sebring 12 Hours and Petit Le Mans IMSA rounds.

Wittmann and Martin will also race at Daytona with the Turner Motorsports squad, which will field a pair of M6 GT3s in the GT Daytona class. Factory driver Jens Klingmann will contest the full season with the team, while BMW junior Jesse Krohn will join the squad for the long-distance races.

Meanwhile, the Rowe Racing squad is switching from Mercedes to BMW to become one of its works-supported teams for the Nurburgring and Spa 24-hour enduros in 2016. The German team replaces Marc VDS Racing, which closed its car racing arm's doors at the end of this season, in BMW's roster and will field examples of the new M6 GT3 at both the Nurburgring and the Blancpain Endurance Series round at Spa.

Rowe will also contest the full Blancpain GT Series, which is made up of the five BES events and the five rounds of the sister Blancpain Sprint Series.

"We are delighted with the partnership with BMW," team boss Hans-Peter Naundorf said. "The opportunity to be able to run the new BMW M6 GT3 at the highest level of motorsport is both challenging and motivating at the same time."

Team Schubert will again represent BMW at the Nurburgring. BMW's driver lineup for the big enduros will include DTM drivers Martin Tomczyk, Farfus, Marco Wittmann and Maxime Martin, as well as Werner and Luhr. They will be joined by BMW regulars Richard Westbrook, Jorg Muller, Jens Klingmann, Alexander Sims and Nicky Catsburg, while Porsche Supercup champion Philipp Eng will also be part of the lineup.

There is no mention in the announcement of BMW's 2016 racing programs of long-time BMW driver Andy Priaulx, who is tipped to be joining Ford's assault on the World Endurance Championship for next season.

Originally on Autosport.com