Westward, BMW notes

Jay Cochran and Peter Boss will campaign the full European Le Mans Series this season with the two ex-works Panoz which are now on their way back from Adelaide. The Westward team cars will later be replaced by two new low-line Panoz. More drivers are to be named at a later date.

Dirk Mueller, the ALMS GT drivers' champion, is to switch to Schnitzer's BMW M3 squad this season. The German believes that there is no future for him with Porsche, for whom he drove this year, and would like to return to Europe with a "touring car platform". Mueller had been talking to both Audi and Bentley about possible drives, but Audi decided not to change its driver line-up other than to switch Tom Kristensen for Allan McNish, and Bentley was considered a one-off drive this year.

BMW is still to take a decision whether to enter the DTM series in 2002 but, homologation procedures aside, is considering a V8 engine for the ALMS M3s in preparation for the DTM car. Mueller will share the second car, JJ Lehto and Jorg Mueller continuing their alliance in the first. Mueller's co-driver will be confirmed in the next two weeks.

"The future was not very good with Porsche," said Mueller. "It would have been good to move to prototypes but I wanted to have a factory behind me. My personal goal is to come back to Europe and perhaps to have a touring car platform."