Tom Kristensen was hot property as the 1997 season drew to a close. And for good reason, after his starring performance on the way to victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours aboard the Joest Porsche WSC95 that year. He had offers galore on the table, Nissan and Mercedes included, but he chose BMW. There were equally good reasons for that, too. The German manufacturer was headed back to Formula 1, and tied up with that programme was a firm commitment to win the French enduro.
That was just as important as the F1 angle to a driver just setting out on the sportscar career that would make him one of the all-time greats: “They told me they were going to Le Mans to win and would keep going until they did.” On the face of it, the marque stuck to its word, though a turn of ill fortune meant it wouldn’t be Kristensen who took the victory laurels. But the story of BMW’s only outright victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours a quarter of a century ago in 1999 with the V12 LMR is far more complex than it looks.
BMW had an undeniable aspiration to win Le Mans. Paul Rosche, its grizzled engine guru and a powerhouse at the BMW Motorsport headquarters at Garching to the north of Munich, was a fan of sportscar racing. But behind the aspiration to take the biggest prize in endurance lay higher ambitions at the top table of motorsport: an F1 return to
