BMW's involvement in motorsport stretches back to the pre-war BMW 328, which won its class at the 1939 24 Hours of Le Mans and proved dominant in international two-litre sports car racing of the late 1930s. By the early 1970s, the scale of BMW's motorsport activity required a formal structure. BMW M GmbH was established to support racing efforts, leading to the development of landmark cars including the BMW M1 and subsequently the BMW M3. The Schnitzer Motorsport team, founded in 1967 by brothers Josef and Herbert Schnitzer, became the primary partner for BMW's factory-backed touring car programme and remained central to its operations for decades.
The cornerstone of BMW Motorsport's success was long-track touring car racing. The BMW M10 engine block, introduced in 1961 as a modest 75 hp unit, was developed across successive decades into one of motorsport's most versatile powerplants. In its turbocharged Formula One form as the M12/13, it became widely regarded as the most powerful engine in Formula One history, producing around 1,400 hp in qualifying trim.
In touring car competition, BMW won seven consecutive Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft manufacturers' championships from 1984 through 1990, an unbroken record in that series. The E30 M3, introduced for the 1987 season, became the most successful BMW road race car in history, winning the 1987 World Touring Car Championship with Roberto Ravaglia driving for Schnitzer Motorsport, along with multiple national titles across Europe. In the British Touring Car Championship, BMW claimed drivers' titles in 1988, 1991, 1992, 1993, 2009, 2014, 2018, and 2019.
BMW's Formula One programme ran in two distinct phases. The first began when BMW developed a turbocharged derivative of the M10 engine block for the Brabham team, racing from 1982. In 1983, Nelson Piquet won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in the Brabham-BMW, delivering BMW its only Formula One title. The M12/13 continued with Brabham, ATS, Arrows, and Benetton through 1986, recording 20 victories before BMW's withdrawal from Formula One at the end of 1987. The engine's legacy extended further when Megatron purchased the rights for the Arrows team's 1988 season, which was the final year turbocharged engines were permitted.
The second Formula One phase saw BMW acquire the Sauber team in 2006, racing as BMW Sauber. The team's high point came at the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix, when Robert Kubica drove to victory — the team's sole race win and BMW's last Formula One triumph. BMW withdrew from Formula One again at the end of 2009, selling the team back to Peter Sauber.
BMW's endurance racing programme built toward a landmark result at the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans, where the BMW V12 LMR — a car designed by Williams Grand Prix Engineering and run by Schnitzer Motorsport — won outright against factory opposition from Audi, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, and Nissan. The drivers were Joachim Winkelhock, Pierluigi Martini, and Yannick Dalmas. The programme had been preceded by the BMW V12 LM in 1998 and supported by victories in the American Le Mans Series, where BMW claimed GT team and manufacturer titles in 2001, 2010, and 2011. BMW has also won the 24 Hours Nürburgring 21 times — a circuit record.
In April 2021, BMW restructured its motorsport organisation, merging the BMW M high-performance road car division with the competitive motorsport arm to form BMW M Motorsport. Current programmes include the BMW M Hybrid V8 competing in the GTP class of the IMSA SportsCar Championship and the FIA World Endurance Championship, alongside extensive GT3 operations through partner teams including WRT, ROWE Racing, Schubert Motorsport, Paul Miller Racing, Turner Motorsport, and Century Motorsport across multiple continents. BMW's GT3 programme is among the most widely supported in global customer racing.