So the main part of the event was the two days, Monday on the GP circuit and Tuesday morning around the Nordschleife. The competition winners and media had also been to BMW Munich over the weekend to see the exhibitions they have there.
The Competition winners were from countries all over Asia, so middle east, China, India, Singpore, Australia, NZ etc. About 15-20 media attended from Europe and Asia. It was a Castrol ran competition which the main prize was this experience, with all flights etc included. For many it was a dream come true, a petrolhead getting to drive an M3 (and many other BMW models) around the iconic Nurburgring, not only drive but also sit next to a WTCC driver on a hot lap.
I attended to do the technical presentation (and demo of Edge going into the race car) and also the media interviews. However I also was allowed to take part in the all of the driving with colleagues from Marketing
The malaysian country ran the competition with a 16 finalist heat at Sepang for example.
Monday:
Several events from Pace car laps to emergency braking, M3 GT4 passenger rides to slalom, giving you the chance to drive several cars.
BMW M3:
There were over 30 M3s there all were about 2-3months old and had brand new tyres on, by the end of the day all the rears on the cars doing pace laps were close to needing replacement. Not bad considering they probably did 5-6hours of driving each
We drove this for the GP circuit pace car laps, and also used ones on the darker 18inch wheels for the drifting/skid-pan event.
Pace Car laps, the groups were split via nationality due to both language and driving experience, the translators would sit in the lead instructor car and translate over the radios that allowed all the cars in the group to hear the instructor (many asian drivers aren't used to driving fast). The group went as fast as the slowest driver
Our group was the UK and Australian group, and fortunately everyone was pretty quick, so it felt like a trackday in the sense that it was pretty much flat out for most of it with the occasional pause to let the group close up
The Car:
So after getting out of the 535i it felt a little more basic but still felt the typical BMW quality. Was happy to see it was a DCT though - especially being LHD. Using the DCT was pretty straight forward and pulling off and driving around at low speed in the auto mode, I didn't notice any jerkyness or anything, felt really smooth. Noise of the engine was awesome, felt civilised and the noise it made when you stabbed the throttle was very nice, great response too.
Out on the track it certainly went well and with great brakes and grip - helped by the fact the ambients were near 20C. The DCT box was just perfect, I had it on full shift speed and both the speed of the upshift and the blipped throttle on downshifts becomes very addictive.
You do notice the weight of the car on turn in and after a few laps I started to find the Traction control very instustive, my passenger then drover and despite going into corners too fast, the traction would let the speed scrub off and bring the car back with no problem, on exits it would bog right down as it waited for the wheels to be straight - it was almost as if it was too easy to drive fast, anyone could drive it fairly quickly especially combined with DCT. I was a little underwhelmed by the involvement and feedback I was getting from the car.
Next session we had the M sport mode activated. This completely changed the car, Im not sure on the exact setting but the EDC went to medium and the throttle became sharper (no doubt its just a more throttle for same pedal effect though). Out on the track
It's difficult to get an idea of what it's really like as a car to live with when you only experience is ragging the crap out of one around the GP circuit or drifting one around cones in the wet, but certainly it is brutally quick, easy to drive. A bit of a jeykl and hyde car.
I read Gibbo's post on it after dirving it and agreed with most of what he said. On the road it would be an awesome car but not sure how much you enjoy the full potential.
I got in my car after getting home expecting it to feel crap, sure it felt slow but it didnt half feel light. Still though: M3 - do want!
Noise and engine - Awesome, the noise it made ...
Other cars:
Z4 S35is - This had the 340hp N55 engine with the single turbo.
Loved this car, this noise it made was like a plane or something, especially when changing at about 4k rpm with the DCT box. It sounded much better than the S35i model. 0-60 is 4.5 seconds, certainly felt believable. A lot of people drove this car and everyone was suprised that the hairdressers banana went so well.
Think these are about £50k though which is hard to justify when the M3 isn't much more.
I don't think the Z4 would be much behind an M3 in a straight line and the low down grunt is better than the M3. One thing that did let it down - the paddles, theyshould be like the M3 though, right paddle up a gear and left down. The Z4 box would go up a gear with either paddle pulled back and down a gear when either was pushed forwad, a bit tricky to get used to.
I also used this car for the evasive manouvres to simulate a high speed lane change and display ESP or whatever BMW call it (Anti spin by braking individual rear wheels). Impressive how the car sorts itself out.
535i (F10) - Smooth, quiet refined and all the toys, but when you gave it some the auto box reacted immediately, effortless acceleration and a out of character engine size. Before driving one I wouldn't have been interested in the car, but now I can really see the attraction in a car like it.
Tuesday was in the X6M
X6M - Don't really know what to make of this car, ridiculous is probably the best word. The X6M has a twin-turbo 4.4-litre V8 with 547bhp and 502lb ft of torque and which accelerates to 62mph in 4.7sec and has a top speed of 171mphengine, again with DCT in a car weighing nearly 2.4 tons
Probably not the best environment to test on the 'North loop' as the downhills really did affect weight transfer with the CoG being so high. Engine was powerful but sounded dull and felt quite laggy and often it would come on boost hard before needing a change from the box which was pretty fierce meaning it was quite an uncomfortable experience. Also suffered from understeer except on the downhills where the backend became very light.
