For the fourth year in a row, Alexander Sims contested the GT season as a BMW works driver, but he was racing for the first time in North America this year. The biggest success of the Brit’s career so far came at Spa-Francorchamps in 2016. Driving alongside Maxime Martin and Philipp Eng, he won the 24 Hours of Spa in a ROWE Racing BMW M6 GT3. He had previously demonstrated his talent in emphatic fashion in the European Le Mans Series, the Blancpain Endurance Series and the British GT Championship. In 2018, Sims shares the #25 BMW M8 GTE with Connor De Phillippi in the IMSA series. He also starts selected races in the WEC.

Over the years, Richard Westbrook has made quite a name for himself on the international GT scene. In 2018, he lined up for BMW Motorsport on the Nordschleife again. The Englishman has competed in all the major 24-hour races for various manufacturers, and has enjoyed plenty of success in the process. Westbrook races in Europe and North America. The biggest success of his career so far came in 2009, when he won the GT2 title in the FIA GT Championship. Westrbrook has also contested many races on the Nordschleife, including at the wheel of the BMW Z4 GT3 in 2015. In 2017, he finished runner-up alongside Alexander Sims, Markus Palttala and Nick Catsburg in the BMW M6 GT3.

John Edwards has been collecting records since he was a child. On 17th January 2004, aged just 12, he won a round of the Skip Barber Series in Daytona, making him the youngest winner of a single-seater race at that time. He took his next steps in Europe, where he raced in Formula Renault in 2005 and 2006 and became the youngest driver ever to receive an FIA racing licence. Edwards is contesting his fifth season for BMW Team RLL in 2018. In 2017, he drove at the Nürburgring 24 Hours alongside Jens Klingmann, Jörg Müller and Tom Onslow-Cole in the #19 BMW M6 GT3, run by the Schubert Motorsport team.

From “BMW Motorsport Junior of the Year” to regular IWSC driver: Jesse Krohn is the finest example of just how successful BMW Motorsport’s promotion of young drivers has been. The Finn was crowned “BMW Motorsport Junior of the Year” in 2014, the first year since the programme was realigned. Since then, he has been a permanent fixture in BMW’s driver line-up for international GT races. Even early on in his career, the Finn made a name for himself on the Formula racing scene, before increasingly switching to GT racing. The second place in the European Le Mans Series did not go unnoticed, and he soon moved on to bigger and better things. In 2016 he lined up in the ADAC GT Masters at the wheel of the BMW M6 GT3. Together with Jörg Müller, Bruno Spengler and Kuno Wittmer, he came home eleventh in the BMW M6 GT3 at the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2017.

Every ending is a new beginning: This was Martin Tomczyk’s thinking when he announced his retirement from the DTM in 2016, paving the way for a career in GT racing. For the man from Rosenheim, the move away from the DTM brought to the end a long chapter in his motorsport career, after 16 years of battling for victories and titles in the touring car series. During his time in the DTM, he also gained experience in GT racing, taking part in both the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps and the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring. In 2017, he moved to the USA, where he lined up at the wheel of the BMW M6 GTLM in the IMSA series. In the same year, Tomczyk narrowly missed out on a podium finish at the Nürburgring 24 Hours. Together with Marco Wittmann, Tom Blomqvist and Augusto Farfus, he finished fourth in the BMW M6 GT3 run by BMW Team Schnitzer.