Jordan Pepper entered 2026 with a new manufacturer after leaving Lamborghini during one of the strongest periods of his career.
The South African had become one of Lamborghini’s leading GT drivers, winning the 2025 CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa before claiming his first DTM victory at the Norisring shortly afterwards. Despite that momentum, Pepper chose to leave the familiar environment and join BMW M Motorsport as a works driver.
His new agreement placed him within BMW’s extensive factory roster and reunited him with fellow South Africans Kelvin and Sheldon van der Linde. Pepper also joined Team WRT for both GT World Challenge Europe championships.
In the Endurance Cup, he shares the No. 32 BMW M4 GT3 EVO with Kelvin van der Linde and Charles Weerts. His Sprint Cup programme places him alongside Amaury Cordeel in the No. 31 car.
Pepper credits BMW support for quick adaptation
While speaking exclusively to Pit Debrief, Pepper was asked how he would assess the opening months of his first season as a BMW factory driver and how quickly he had adapted to Team WRT and the BMW M4 GT3 EVO.
“Obviously, the transition always comes with a lot of new learnings, a lot of challenges that lie ahead, but I think I’ve fitted in quite well, and this is down to being surrounded by really strong support from both BMW’s side, obviously from the team’s side, like driving for WRT.”
“They have such a good bunch of experienced people that help me get up to speed, a lot of testing programmes and stuff, which helps as well, and then a lot of drivers within the brand who are very open with each other. We all seem to get on quite well and help each other, which is always good.”
Team WRT’s established engineering structure and testing programme gave Pepper an experienced environment in which to learn the BMW M4 GT3 EVO. He also had familiar support within BMW’s South African driver group.
“It’s no secret being able to lean on Kelvin and Sheldon, who are always my first point of call, and I think I owe a lot to Kelvin, especially for how much he helped me through the winter and stuff like that. I think it’s shown its benefits; we’ve been able to get up to speed quite quickly.”
Kelvin van der Linde’s support carried directly into Pepper’s race programme, with the two sharing Team WRT’s Endurance Cup entry alongside Weerts.
A dream start with BMW
Pepper’s results quickly supported his positive assessment of the transition. He began his BMW career with victory in Dubai before adding another win in the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie.
“Results-wise, I had a dream start, winning at the beginning of the year in my first race with BMW at Dubai, which was very special for me,” he said.
“Since then, we obviously picked up a win at the Nürburgring in NLS, which was cool. As of late, it hasn’t been as perfect and as successful, but I would still say pretty decent.”
Pepper took fourth at the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup opener at Paul Ricard with Kelvin van der Linde and Weerts. He and Cordeel then began their Sprint Cup campaign with fourth and seventh at Brands Hatch.
“Fourth in Paul Ricard was very cool, a good start to the Sprint Championship in Brands Hatch with a P4 and a P7, so if I were to rate it out of 10, I would say definitely an eight out of 10.”
“Probably the only reason it’s not higher is because of the unlucky situation that happened at the Nürburgring, where we DNF’d due to a mechanical issue out of our control. In general, we didn’t quite have the car speed to fight anyway.”
Spa becomes the immediate priority
Pepper had little time to dwell on that retirement, with a busy GT World Challenge Europe schedule leading into the 2026 CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa.
Pepper returned to Spa as the defending winner, but almost everything around him had changed. He now represented BMW, drove the M4 GT3 EVO and raced with Team WRT.
“I think we have so many races on our calendars, we’re all so busy, and the best way to get over a bad result like the Nürburgring is to get back racing again. I’m looking forward to really pushing now. I think we have a lot of GT World races back-to-back, and I think Spa is for sure creeping up on us, going there as a defending champion.”
He continued, “I think that’s obviously something I want to do, to win it again, especially with BMW or Team WRT. I think it’s been circled quite clearly on the calendar as the one we want to win.”
A second consecutive victory would allow him to defend the result with a different manufacturer while confirming how quickly he had adapted to his new programme.
Leaving Lamborghini required a long-term view
Pepper’s move came at a time when remaining with Lamborghini would have been the safer choice. He had established himself within the manufacturer’s programme and had just delivered some of the strongest results of his career.
When asked by Pit Debrief whether leaving such a successful and familiar environment had been difficult, Pepper said his decision centred on longer-term opportunities.
“For sure, it’s very easy to stay in an environment where you’re comfortable, performing well,” he admitted. “I think I was in a good space there. But, for me, a big motivation for my change was longer term, really focusing on opportunities beyond one or two years of good success.”
“I think when you look at BMW as a whole, when you look at their whole driver portfolio, there are 23 factory drivers, and I cannot point out a weak one.”
BMW offers Pepper a new benchmark
Pepper viewed the strength of BMW’s factory roster as a reason to join rather than a barrier. The programme placed him alongside established GT specialists and drivers involved in the manufacturer’s Hypercar activities.
“So, I think you can put all of them wherever you want. It doesn’t matter which driver in what championship, whether it’s the ROWE guys, it’s us, it’s the Hypercar guys, there are so many good drivers. And to be a part of that pool of drivers is obviously pushing me to a new limit, a new level. And longer term, I think, for me, it was the time to change.”
Although Pepper did not identify one specific future programme, BMW’s involvement across GT and prototype racing offered the possibility of opportunities beyond his current GT3 commitments.
Pepper remains grateful for Lamborghini chapter
Pepper stressed that his departure did not reflect a lack of support from Lamborghini. Instead, he felt he had reached the right moment to reset his career and pursue a different challenge.
“Also internally inside Lamborghini, I felt my value was probably… I had good support from them, and I was doing great championships and stuff. But I felt my ceiling was not getting reached. I don’t want to say anything bad by any means. They gave me the best opportunities, and I’m ever grateful for it.”
“But I felt that, internally, in the position that I was in, it was a good moment in my career to make a shift, and it also allows you to probably take a reset, really look for new goals, new motivations.”
“And especially the opportunities that, hopefully, one day I can open myself up to by joining BMW were a clear reason for me to change as well.”
Pepper therefore left Lamborghini from a position of strength rather than because the partnership had stopped producing results. The move gave him a chance to establish himself again within a new manufacturer and test himself against another deep factory line-up.
His first victories with BMW suggested that the transition had already worked. Spa now offered the clearest opportunity to turn that encouraging start into a defining result.
