Schnitzer Motorsport Explained

Schnitzer Motorsport was a motorsport team based in Freilassing near Munich, Germany. From the early days of its establishment, the team mostly operated an automobile racing squad for BMW, and had remarkable results in touring car and sports car racing. The team would often run the cars for BMW under the name of "BMW Motorsport". In 2012, the team operated the DTM team for BMW under the name of "BMW Team Schnitzer".

On 4 December 2020, BMW announced that it will terminate its relationship with Schnitzer Motorsport after more than 50 years.^[1]

History

The team was founded in 1967 by the brothers Josef (August 7, 1939 - August 31, 1978) and Herbert Schnitzer (b. June 5, 1941). Their stepfather Karl Lamm had a car repair shop and dealer business. The brothers started racing in 1962, and Josef Schnitzer won the 1966 German Championship in a BMW 2000ti. In 1968, both retired from active race driving to focus on the business and the race team.

In the 1970s, the Schnitzer's younger half-brothers Karl ("Charly") and Dieter Lamm joined the team, with Charly Lamm acting as team manager at the race tracks. In 1978, Josef Schnitzer died in an accident, and Herbert Schnitzer remained as the boss.

Apart from having the BMW dealership and Motorsport team based in Southern Germany's Bavaria, they also owned a BMW tuning specialist concern in the far north near the border of Belgium and the Netherlands, in Aachen. As this city has the license plate code AC, they called this branch AC Schnitzer.

Since the 1960s, the Schnitzer team was mainly active with BMW and BMW M cars in Touring car racing, namely in the European Touring Car Championship, the Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft, the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft and the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC).

In 1977 and 1978 Schnitzer tried to take on the mighty Porsche 935 in the DRM. They developed a Group 5, 5600NaN0 turbocharged silhouette version of the RA40 Toyota Celica and raced it with modest success. The best finish of the Celica LB Turbo was a fourth at Nürburgring in 1977, but with dismal reliability the next year Schnitzer withdrew and returned their focus to BMWs.^[2]

Joachim Winkelhock, Pierluigi Martini and Yannick Dalmas won the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans for Team BMW Motorsport in a BMW V12 LMR, operated by Schnitzer Motorsport.^[3]

In the 2000s, they mainly competed as "BMW Team Germany" in the WTCC with drivers Jörg Müller, Dirk Müller, and Augusto Farfus from 2005 to 2009.

Schnitzer was also active in Sports car racing and Endurance racing, e.g. the ALMS and Le Mans Series.On 26 January 2011 it was announced that Schnitzer Motorsport, under the name Team Schnitzer, would run Andy Priaulx's GT2 M3 in the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup^[4]

In 2012, BMW Team Schnitzer, along with BMW Team RBM, and Reinhold Motorsport GmbH, each line up with two BMW M3 DTM cars in the DTM.^[5]

In September 2018, Charly Lamm announced that he would step down from his role at Schnitzer at the end of the year.^[6] He died unexpectedly on 24 January 2019.^[7]

In early 2021 the organisation began the process of being liquidated.^[8]

Major wins

Championships

• 1978 Deutsche Rennsport Meisterschaft (Harald Ertl, BMW 320i Turbo)
• 1983 European Touring Car Championship (Dieter Quester, BMW 635 CSi)
• 1986 European Touring Car Championship (Roberto Ravaglia, BMW 635 CSi)
• 1987 World Touring Car Championship (Roberto Ravaglia, BMW M3)
• 1988 European Touring Car Championship (Roberto Ravaglia, BMW M3)
• 1989 Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (Roberto Ravaglia, BMW M3)
• 1989-1991 Italian Touring Car Championship (1989: Johnny Cecotto and 1990-1991: Roberto Ravaglia, BMW M3, BMW M3 Evolution)
• 1991 Nissan Mobil 500 Series (Emanuele Pirro, Joachim Winkelhock, BMW M3 Evolution)
• 1993 British Touring Car Championship (Champion: Joachim Winkelhock and Runner-up: Steve Soper, BMW 318i)
• 1994 Asia-Pacific Touring Car Championship (Joachim Winkelhock, BMW 318i)
• 1995 Japanese Touring Car Championship (Steve Soper, BMW 318is) and 1995 Super Tourenwagen Cup (Joachim Winkelhock)
• 1998 Super Tourenwagen Cup (Johnny Cecotto), BMW 320i
• 2001 American Le Mans Series GT (Jörg Müller, BMW M3 GTR V8)
• 2012 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (Bruno Spengler) (BMW M3 DTM)

Races

• 1976 1000km Nürburgring (Albrecht Krebs, Dieter Quester, BMW 3.5 CSL)
• 1985-1986 Spa 24 Hours (Roberto Ravaglia, Gerhard Berger, Marc Surer, Dieter Quester, Altfrid Heger, Thierry Tassin) (BMW 635 CSi)
• 1988 Spa 24 Hours (Roberto Ravaglia, Altfrid Heger, Dieter Quester) (BMW M3)
• 1988-1991 Wellington 500 (Roberto Ravaglia, Emanuele Pirro, Johnny Cecotto, Joachim Winkelhock, BMW M3, BMW M3 Evolution)
• 1990 Spa 24 Hours (Johnny Cecotto, Fabien Giroix, Markus Oestreich, BMW M3 Evolution) ^[9]
• 1991 24 Hours Nürburgring (BMW M3 Evolution)
• 1992 Guia Race (1 - 2 - 3 finish, Winner: Emanuele Pirro, Runner-up: Joachim Winkelhock and Third: Roberto Ravaglia, BMW M3 Evolution)
• 1992 Pukekohe 500 (Emanuele Pirro, Joachim Winkelhock, BMW M3 Evolution)
• 1994 Guia Race (1–2 finish, Winner: Joachim Winkelhock, Runner-up: Steve Soper, BMW 318i)
• 1998 24 Hours Nürburgring (BMW 320d)
• 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans (BMW V12 LMR)
• 2004-2005 24 Hours Nürburgring (1 - 2 finishes two years in a row, BMW M3 GTR V8)
• 2010 24 Hours Nürburgring (Jörg Müller, Augusto Farfus, Uwe Alzen, Pedro Lamy, BMW M3 GT2)
• 2018 FIA GT World Cup (Augusto Farfus, BMW M6 GT3)

Complete Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters results

(key)

Year	Entrant	Car	No	Driver	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	Pos	Points
2012	BMW Team Schnitzer	BMW M3 DTM	7	Bruno Spengler	HOC	LAU	BRH	SPL	NOR	NÜR	ZAN	OSC	VAL	HOC									1st	149
			8	Dirk Werner	HOC	LAU	BRH	SPL	NOR	NÜR	ZAN	OSC	VAL	HOC									9th	29
2013	BMW Team Schnitzer	BMW M3 DTM	1	Bruno Spengler	HOC	BRH	SPL	LAU	NOR	MSC	NÜR	OSC	ZAN	HOC									3rd	82
			2	Dirk Werner	HOC	BRH	SPL	LAU	NOR	MSC	NÜR	OSC	ZAN	HOC									13th	30
2014	BMW Team Schnitzer	BMW M4 DTM	9	Bruno Spengler	HOC	OSC	HUN	NOR	MSC	SPL	NÜR	LAU	ZAN	HOC									11th	42
			10	Martin Tomczyk	HOC	OSC	HUN	NOR	MSC	SPL	NÜR	LAU	ZAN	HOC									6th	49
2015	BMW Team Schnitzer	BMW M4 DTM	13	António Félix da Costa	HOC 1	HOC 2	LAU 1 19	LAU 2 14	NOR 1 12	NOR 2 12	ZAN 1 2	ZAN 2 1	SPL 1 13	SPL 2 10	MSC 1 11	MSC 2 22	OSC 1 3	OSC 2 4	NÜR 1 9	NÜR 2 15	HOC 1 11	HOC 2 7	11th*	79*
			77	Martin Tomczyk	HOC 1	HOC 2	LAU 1 12	LAU 2 11	NOR 1 6	NOR 2 11	ZAN 1 Ret	ZAN 2 Ret	SPL 1 Ret	SPL 2 12	MSC 1 17	MSC 2 Ret	OSC 1 8	OSC 2 20	NÜR 1 WD	NÜR 2 9	HOC 1 15	HOC 2 10	19th	27*
2016	BMW Team Schnitzer	BMW M4 DTM	13	António Félix da Costa	HOC 1 7	HOC 2 Ret	SPL 1 22	SPL 2 21	LAU 1 15	LAU 2 14	NOR 1 9	NOR 2 DSQ	ZAN 1 6	ZAN 2 17	MSC 1 20	MSC 2 19	NÜR 1 20	NÜR 2 19	HUN 1 16	HUN 2 3	HOC 1 4	HOC 2 Ret	17th	43
			100	Martin Tomczyk	HOC 1 12	HOC 2 9	SPL 1 5	SPL 2 19	LAU 1 Ret	LAU 2 18	NOR 1 12	NOR 2 10	ZAN 1 19	ZAN 2 11	MSC 1 21	MSC 2 23	NÜR 1 16	NÜR 2 12	HUN 1 23	HUN 2 9	HOC 1 20	HOC 2 10	21st	16

^† Driver did not finish, but completed 75% of the race distance.

External links

• • The history of the Team Schnitzer - by AC Schnitzer official website

Notes and References

1. Web site: BMW ends its relationship with Schnitzer team. Gary Watkins. 4 December 2020. Motorsport.com.
2. Web site: Bigger Than Life: The Schnitzer Celica . Chong, Rod . Speedhunters.com . 2009-02-19 . 2011-01-31 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110119170131/http://speedhunters.com/archive/2009/02/19/retrospective-gt-gt-bigger-than-life-the-schnitzer-celica-turbo.aspx . 2011-01-19 .
3. Web site: BMW parts ways with Le Mans-winning Schnitzer squad. Davey Euwema. 20 November 2020. Motosport Week.
4. Web site: WTCC: Full ILMC season for Andy Priaulx . TouringCarTimes . 2011-01-26 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110201064057/http://www.touringcartimes.com/article.php?id=5719 . 2011-02-01 .
5. http://www.bmw-motorsport.com/ms_en/news/2011/march/bmw_motorsport_presents_the_teams_for_its_dtm_project BMW Motorsport presents the teams for its DTM project.
6. News: Schnitzer legend Charly Lamm steps back from team manager role. 19 November 2018. Tamara Aller. 19 September 2018.
7. News: BMW Motorsport mourns the loss of Charly Lamm. 25 January 2019. 25 January 2019.
8. News: Top touring car and sportcar squad Schnitzer Motorsport set to be liquidated. Haidinger. Sven. Newbold. James. 5 February 2021. 6 February 2021. Autosport.
9. Web site: Spa 24 Hours 1990 - Photo Gallery - Racing Sports Cars.