Days after another victory in the GT World Cup in Macau with Mercedes, Raffaele Marciello was announced by BMW M Motorsport as a factory driver. It was already known that he would leave the Silver Star manufacturer, and now his destination has been revealed. It is still unknown which championships he will compete in.
The Italian has been one of the strongest drivers in GT racing for several seasons, as demonstrated by his numerous titles. In 2022 and 2023 alone, he became the GT World Challenge Europe champion, won the 24 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, won the GT World Cup in Macau for the second time, and was also the ADAC GT Masters champion last year.
With previous diverse experience, Marciello has competed in Formula 3 and the GP2 Series, in addition to testing Formula 1 cars for Ferrari and Sauber – he was even part of the Ferrari Driver Academy.
The director of BMW M Motorsport, Andreas Roos, stated: ‘I am very pleased to welcome Raffaele Marciello to the BMW M Motorsport family. When you have the opportunity to sign a top-caliber driver like him, you have to take it. But there is much more to him. Before his GT career, Raffaele Marciello has shown his class several times in single-seaters. From our point of view, he brings the best overall package with his versatility to further strengthen our already high-quality roster of factory drivers. The multitude of competition programs that we will carry out in the coming years with our cars provides various development opportunities. We will announce the specific details of Raffaele Marciello’s competitive program in the coming weeks and months.’
For his part, Marciello commented: ‘I am very excited to be a BMW M factory driver starting next season. This is a significant step in my career. Having been a factory driver for several years, I am very proud to be able to compete for BMW M Motorsport in the future’.
