Re: BMW in 2003 MotoGP! Sort of...
I have seen interviews with several top BMW execs (both Motorcycle and Aotomobile divisions) which indicate that they are, in fact, considering it. They indicated that if they were to do so, it would not be primarily for marketing motorcycles, but was for marketing cars. BMW car owners, especially in Europe, are very much performance oriented, and like to be on the cutting edge of technology, much different from the Bike customers who are much more traditional.
The other reason cited was to motivate and reward their engineering and technical staff. I believe that Honda used to do that (maybe still do) -- rotate promising engineers through the race departments as 1) a reward, and 2) part of training.
Cheers
Bob