The legendary BMW Junior Team celebrates its comeback after more than 40 years. Eddie Cheever, Manfred Winkelhock and Marc Surer caused a stir in the world of motorsport in 1977, and 2020 will see a new generation of promising talents contest races under the name BMW Junior Team. Dan Harper, Max Hesse and Neil Verhagen will complete a holistic, first-class, intensive training programme designed to cover two seasons that will set new standards in the promotion of young talented drivers. One of their mentors will be the man who founded the first BMW Junior Team in 1977: Jochen Neerpasch.
The objective of the totally new training concept is to further develop the Juniors jointly in many different areas, stimulate them individually and holistically, and thereby make them better and above all more mature racing drivers. The BMW Junior Team will start its training program me on 9th January when they move into a shared flat close to Formula Medicine in Viareggio, where a training camp spanning several weeks awaits them. Here the focus will be on fitness and mental training as fundamental elements of preparing for the race season. Another pillar of the programme is the team concept. To strengthen this, once the training camp comes to an end, the Juniors will move into a shared flat near the Nürburgring, which will become the focal point of their racing driver training. At the wheel of various BMW racing cars – from the new BMW M2 CS Racing through the BMW M4 GT4 to the BMW M6 GT3 – the BMW Junior Team will complete the entire season of the Nürburgring endurance series as well as the 24 Hours of Nürburgring. On top of the racing commitments come numerous additional training elements. Sim racing will play a major role, as will learning about operations away from pure racing, for example, at BMW M GmbH and in various other areas within the BMW Group.