A technical issue is the official reason fashioned by BMW after South African Sheldon van der Linde lost control and crashed the new generation M4 GT3 into the barriers during Friday practice at the Nurburgring Nordschleife.
The M4 GT3 was due to make its debut in the NLS four-hour race on Saturday before Van der Linde’s shunt in the practice session on Friday evening. The damage caused by the crash was too severe and could not be repaired overnight. BMW made the decision to postpone the race debut.
“It is a great shame that our test week with the BMW M4 GT3, which had been very successful up until that point, ended prematurely – and that we have had to postpone the car’s race debut, to which we were all very much looking forward,” said BMW M Motorsport boss Mike Krack.
“The impact caused damage to the car and so we decided to withdraw from the NLS race on Saturday.
“We did not take this decision lightly. However, our priority now is to find out exactly what caused the crash.
Van der Linde, who races in DTM for BMW, tweeted on Saturday:
Hey everyone. We unfortunately won’t be starting todays race with the new car due to a crash on the Nordschleife yesterday. The cause is currently being analysed by our @BMWMotorsport engineers but I‘m all good, thanks for your messages 👌🏼🙏🏽 pic.twitter.com/VSpsPNcJXH
— Sheldon van der Linde (@SheldonvdLinde) June 26, 2021
“It is not uncommon to have a technical issue in the development phase of a new car. That is precisely what these intensive tests are for: to identify potential weaknesses during the development phase, and to eliminate these for the future. That is what we will do now,” Krack said.
