MINI Motorsport is back for a second helping of Nürburgring 24 hour action in 2012, returning with their JCW Endurance machine. As well as the factory-back s.i.g. Motorsport team, three other MINI entries are finalising preparations for the big race. The Besaplast Racing Team will compete in the SP 2T category, fresh off their class [...]

Here’s some nice footage of the MINI John Cooper Works Endurance filmed during practice for the Nürburgring 24 hour race. The JCW Endurace is racing in the SP 3T class and MINI will be hoping for a strong top 10 showing. Some rather more tame promo footage of the MINI JCW Endurance can be seen [...]

The new MINI Coupé is not even a week old and its already living up to its “another day, another adventure” advertising slogan. You’re looking at the purpose-built MINI John Cooper Works Endurance and it’s looking forward to 24 hours of green hell this weekend. As we reported yesterday, the JCW Endurance has a healthy [...]

The build up to this year’s Nürburgring 24 hour race has seen input from the usual crowd: Audi, BMW, Porsche, Volkswagen et al. However, MINI, too has been quietly simmering away with the slow release of information, which started earlier this year. Until now, the car that MINI motorsport would be running was a mystery. [...]

While researching the MINI motorsport website for their WRC launch we stumbled across this teaser that indicates MINI will have an official presence at this year’s 24 hour race. The MINI motorsport website states, in part, “MINI will also be demonstrating its staying power in the 2011 motor racing season, when it faces the competition [...]

The 2010 Nürburgring 24 hour race is now well into its second half. If you’ve missed some of the action then tip your hat to the MT89Motorsports channel on YouTube. Included after the jump are five clips from the race so far: Opening lap – includes all three starting groups #98 Audi R8 LMS on [...]

Back in April it was announced a specially prepared MINI E Race had lapped the Nürburgring in under 10 minutes. In this age of Porsche v Nissan lap wars sub-10 minute laps times are nothing too special. But, when you consider that the MINI E used to post this lap did so under full electric [...]

A specially prepared 150kW electric powered MINI has just lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife in under 10 minutes. The MINI E Race is based on the MINI E road car which was first announced in October 2008. Modifications to the standard MINI E include the addition of a roll cage, KW Variant 3 suspension, MINI Challenge [...]

Here’s a nice, clean Touristenfahrten lap filmed from inside a MINI JCW GP, the last Cooper S special built on the R53 platform. Many consider the GP to be the ultimate (BMW) MINI. Well, now you can see how a GP handles the ultimate track. Eight minutes of ‘Ring goodness can be seen after the [...]

Here’s some great in car footage from the MINI CHALLENGE car of HBPO Racing’s Steve Kirsch, filmed during the Nürburgring 24 hour race weekend held during May. For more on the Australian MINI CHALLENGE, make sure you check out AUSmotive.com. (Thanks to Chris for the tip.)

Taking a step back in time here is a small snippet offrom Wheels August 2001 issue with some spy shots of the R53 MINI Cooper S testing at the Nürburgring (click on the image for a larger version). At the time the then all-new MINI Cooper under BMW’s stewardship had just been launched and there [...]

Continuing the theme of the Nürburgring 24 hour race, here is some footage of the MINI CHALLENGE support category from the 2007 event. Split into four parts the in-car setup has been taken from the car of Carlo Bermes, racing for the HBPO racing team. This first clip takes you from the start on the [...]

Following on from yesterday’s post about the 2008 Australian MINI Challenge debut I thought it might be a good time to raid the vault for this classic, if alarming, footage from a MINI Challenge support race at the 2006 Nürburgring 24 Hour event. Thomas Winkelhock rolled his R53 MINI Challenge racecar 8 times after getting [...]

This weekend saw the world racing debut of the new R56 MINI Challenge cars. The 2008 Australian series kicked off at Sydney’s Eastern Creek and Neil McFadyen from the M3 Motorsports team has taken the round win. McFadyen claimed the chequered flag in Race 1 and Race 3, with Race 2 being won by Grant [...]

The Australian debut of the 2008 MINI Challenge series is just days away, with the Eastern Creek round being held this weekend. This morning’s emails revealed the following press release from BMW which on the surface sounds quite good, but perhaps paints the MINI Challenge as some sort of quaint novelty. Time will tell I [...]