23 JANUARY 2018 Munich. This is the moment BMW Motorsport has been waiting for: after months of intensive development, the new BMW M8 GTE will make its race debut this weekend. The new top model for international GT racing will take to the track at the legendary 24-hour race in Daytona (USA), the opener of the 2018 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. The 56th edition of the endurance classic takes place on 27th/28th January. The honour of contesting the first race with the BMW M8 GTE goes to BMW Team RLL. Team principal Bobby Rahal’s (USA) crew enters their tenth season with BMW and is set to compete in the IMSA series with two BMW M8 GTE this year. The BMW M8 GTE is the result of BMW’s latest thinking in GT car development and constructed in order to be eligible to compete at Le Mans – something BMW will do this year for the first time since 2011. Where the BMW Z4 GTLM and BMW M6 GTLM raced in the four previous IMSA seasons were derived from GT3 versions of these