Valentino Rossi's BMW became "unsafe" to drive after heartbreaking Le Mans issue

WRT BMW team boss Vincent Vosse says the No.46 car became “unsafe” to drive after an electrical issue knocked Valentino Rossi out of the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The MotoGP legend, alongside team-mates Kelvin van der Linde and Ahmad Al Harthy, qualified third in the LMGT3 class for the 93 edition of the French enduro classic.

Despite a sluggish opening hour, the No.46 car steadily worked its way into the lead of the class and was in a strong position to win as night fell at Le Mans.

However, an electrical issue would end the No.46 car’s race prematurely, while the sister No.31 M4 was knocked out after it struck a rabbit.

Speaking to he media, including Crash.net, after the race on Sunday, Vosse explained: “We had with car 46 an electrical issue which seems to come from the loom, but it needs more investigation, because the loom, it can be everything.

“The loom, it can come from very different points and of course it was unsafe to send back the car on track because once you have this like a cut [in power] like Kelvin had, you are losing everything.

“So, you enter into a corner, you are losing the power steering, you are losing the ABS, you are losing everything.

“So we decided that it was unsafe to send drivers back on track with such an issue.

“The second car, as you probably have laughed already a few times about it.

“We just met a rabbit on the track and could not do much about it.

“Of course, just came like that. It destroyed the front of the car with the radiator and so on.

“The work was again something to put the car back on track in a proper way, which we tried to do, but it was too big and we decide to retire the car.”

The WRT team didn’t fare any better in the Hypercar class, as both the No.15 and No.20 cars suffered technical issues that ended any hopes of points.

The No.20 of Rene Rast, Robin Frijns and Sheldon van der Linde was the leading BMW in Hypercar in 18th overall, while the No.15 of Kevin Magnussen, Dries Vanthoor and Raffaele Marciello was 26 laps down in 32nd.

“For Hypercar, we had an issue, engine issue on car 20,” Vosse added.

“And on the car 15, we had, let's say, a battery issue - the cooling of the battery for car 15.

“We need to investigate more, we need to investigate more to know where it came from.

“As you saw, we, it was quite difficult to put back the car on track. We only did the last lap.

“It needs to be more properly analysed. Unfortunately, it was looking, let's say OK-ish.

“I think we could have fought for somewhere around the car number six [Porsche], I would say behind the car number 6, which was a bit quicker than us.

“But we had our place somewhere around around that car. we were in front of the two Toyotas, in front of the Caddy, but once we hit the issue.

“Yeah, so it's a very disappointing result [and] weekend for us. you can imagine the amount of work which was put in it.

“Not for the last few weeks, but for the last few months, since last year's Le Mans, so of course we need to rethink a little bit.

“And we need to review let's say the analysis and and to see where the problem came from.

“The car itself was going, going good. We had at some stage some very good pace.

“Of course not to fight with the with the Ferrari as you could see, but everything behind the Ferrari I think was reachable if we were doing a perfect race, which was not the case.”