The invite came after his successful debut at the Phillip Island GT Festival where he and fellow Orange based driver Tim Leahey clean-swept the weekend.
“It was pretty surreal to be honest,” described Burcher.
“It was a bit of a surprise getting the call after my first round at Phillip Island. I got the call up to head over in Germany with all the factory personnel, which was awesome.
“BMW has a wealth of knowledge in so many departments over there, so it was definitely an eye opening experience that’s for sure and just to experience the rich history the brand has across so many categories in addition to years was awesome.”
Twelve participated in the unique experience. The test process focused on the areas of driving, mental and physical fitness, in addition to media performances.
The driving tests were held in the BMW M Motorsport simulator, normally reserved for factory drivers. Physical and mental capabilities tests were undertaken by renowned experts Formula Medicine.
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There was also a set-up session with the simulator and an interview with BMW M Motorsport’s communication experts to judge their media savviness.
“We spent a lot of time on the BMW simulators including the main one used to train and develop all the drivers. Where we were driving their BMW LMDh car, which was very eye opening.”
“We then got to drive in some different scenarios and setups to put us under a bit of pressure. We did some set-up work involving simulators to check how we went about our preparation and racing.
“Day 2 was when the fitness testing began. One of the more memorable activities we did was five minutes of burpees, but there was a lot more than that to the program where they pushed us past our limits.”
Burcher will use the skills learnt from the experience to good effect in Monochrome GT4 Australia next year as he targets further success alongside Leahey in the Central West Prestige BMW M4 GT4 G82.
“I’m a big fan of how BMW goes about its racing and even the expanded program here in Australia. There are four M4 GT4 G82s in Monochrome GT4 Australia, with each competitive in a different way.
“For me, it would be great to go over to Europe and do some racing there or potentially even GT3 at some point, but right now I have a job to do here first.
“The plan is to come back with Tim. We want to capitalise on the success we’ve had this year, and I think we’ve set a good foundation.”
The first round of the 2025 Monochrome GT4 Australia season is at Phillip Island on April 4-6.
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