- BMW’s new entry-level customer racecar has completed its first live event.
- The stripped-down M2-based coupe’s maiden outing was a four-hour endurance race at the Nurburgring.
- Our interior photos reveal the coupe’s turbocharged inline six is mated to an automatic transmission.
The latest BMW M2 has already won plenty of praise from reviewers and owners for the way it drives (if not the way it looks). And now its racecar sister has taken its first tentative steps towards winning some cups on the circuit.
BMW has teased the motorsport version of the M2 a couple of times already, but this past weekend the coupe took part in its first real race. The event was a four-hour endurance race that combined the old Nurburgring Nordschleife with the modern Nurburgring grand prix circuit, allowing BMW to see how the car performed on two very different types of track.
Related: BMW Teases New M2-Based Racecar
Max Hesse and Jens Klingmann paired up to drive the car under the FK Performance Motorsport banner and endured some horrific weather conditions, as our photos show. According to Motorsport-XL, the car failed to finish and was slower than a Porsche Cayman and a VW Golf 7 TCR that were competing in the same SP3T class. But for M engineers this exercise was more about gathering data on the successor to the old M2 CS Racing rather than trying to get their drivers onto the top step of the podium on the car’s first outing.
BMW hasn’t revealed much in the way of technical details for the track version of the 473 hp (480 PS) M2, but an image from our photographer taken at the race shows the inside of the car for the first time. The pic confirms that the coupe’s 3.0-liter inline six is mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission and not the available six-speed manual many M2 drivers choose for the road.
The Alcantara-covered carbon fiber steering wheel still has the stock cruise control, audio and telephone buttons as well as the red M1 and M2 buttons that can be used to store chassis and powertrain settings on the street car. It’s possible those same buttons might be able to change some settings on the competition version.
Obviously the race car has a full cage, buckets and slick tires that you won’t find on the equivalent model in your local BMW dealer, but they’re not the only differences. The racer’s fuel filler has been relocated from the rear fender to the blanked-off rear side window.
BMW hasn’t yet said how much its new entry-level competition car will cost, but the M2 road car costs $64,900 and and we imagine you’ll have to add at least half as much again to bag the track variant.
