It may not be favourite to win nor anything close, but the most spectacular car racing at the 24 Hours of Le Mans this weekend will be the BMW M Hybrid V8 driven by Sheldon van der Linde, Robin Frijns and René Rast. Appropriately, and for reasons we shall see, it is car number 20.
The M Hybrid V8 is BMW’s new Hypercar and it is attempting to score BMW’s second outright win in the French classic, after the victory of the McLaren F1-powered V12 LMR in 1999, a race rather better remembered for airborne Mercedes. It’s also one of the shapelier Le Mans racers. But the standout feature is its abstract artwork paint job, a kaleidoscopic 3D eyeful of neon colour, dots, squiggles and stripes. Only the occasional (small) sponsor logo injects a touch of motor racing normalcy.
It’s BMW’s 20th art car – thus that race number – and the seventh to compete at Le Mans. The latest celebrity artist to use a car as a canvas is Ethiopian-born American Julie Mehretu, who originally rejected BMW’s offer. She says her motor racing mad nephew Theo persuaded her to reconsider. She is the latest in a long line of artistic royalty to accept the commission.
