Bsimracing Sim Racing Resources and News for the racing enthousiast.
During today’s BMW Sim Live event, iRacing and BMW M Motorsport announced a new collaboration bringing the BMW M Hybrid V8 to the online racing platform.
BMW M Motorsport is set to become the first manufacturer in the world to make its new LMDh car, the BMW M Hybrid V8, available to the sim racing community. As with the BMW M4 GT3, real and virtual development of the car run synchronously.
If all goes as planned the BMW M Hybrid V8 should become available in December of this year.
The race premiere of the real-world BMW M Hybrid V8 at the 24 Hours of Daytona (USA) in January 2023 moves closer. The car is currently undergoing intensive testing in the USA. While the car has a special camouflage livery for the tests, the BMW M Hybrid V8 will have a works design in the iconic BMW M Motorsport colors from the start of next year.
The BMW M Hybrid V8 is powered by the P66/3 eight-cylinder turbo engine with supplementary electric drive. The combustion engine is based on the DTM unit used in the BMW M4 DTM in 2017 and 2018. During two phases of reconstruction, it underwent comprehensive adjustments to meet the stringent requirements of the LMDh hybrid drive system.
When it comes to introducing real BMW M race cars to the virtual world, BMW M Motorsport and iRacing have been close and perfectly attuned partners for many years, said Maurizio Leschiutta, LMDh project leader at BMW M Motorsport. As the head of such an important project, confidentiality is my number one priority; it would be fatal if the competition discovered the technical details of our car that we want to keep secret. In that respect, I came away really impressed by iRacing’s professionalism. We are making CAD data and findings from our simulator and racetrack tests available to iRacing. They are used as the basis on which to create a realistic virtual version. This gives every sim racer the opportunity to experience the performance of a state-of-the-art prototype and the appeal of BMW M Motorsport.
We’re incredibly excited to confirm that the BMW M Hybrid V8 will be coming to iRacing in the coming months, said iRacing executive vice president Steve Myers. We’ve been eagerly anticipating the LMDh class for a few years now, and BMW M Motorsport’s support has been indispensable in helping us to bring both their entry and the new class to iRacing. Building this car in the sim has been a joy for our team, and we can’t wait to see the community’s response upon release.
Official Webpage – www.iRacing.com
