Just earlier this week, the CEO of BMW M, Marcus Flasch said that the BMW M8 Competition will be the fastest car the Bavarian car ever unleashed on the Nurburgring Nordschleife. That’s a very bold claim considering the M8 is considerably heavier than the M4 GTS, the current record holder. Nevertheless, he claims the test drivers were so impressed with the car that they called it the ‘Porsche Turbo killer’. Some have immediately thought of the the M5 Competition.
Why, you ask? Because the two share a lot of their underpinnings. They have the same engine and the same transmission so it’s only natural to think they may be close in performance. At least when it comes to straight line performance, there’s only 0.1 seconds between them, a negligible amount of time in real-life situations. However, the M8 does ride a bit lower and has a different suspension, so it will most likely be a bit faster.
The video below shows the guys from Sport Auto lapping the Nurburgring with the M5 Competition. The man behind the wheel has plenty of experience in doing this sort of thing and I think this could be considered close to the most you can squeeze out of the car. The lap time set was 7:35.9 which is about 3 seconds faster than the non-Competition M5, but there are a couple of things we need to consider here.
From the looks of things the track was a bit damp when this lap was recorded. Furthermore, the car rode on Pirellis and I think a set of Michelin Cup 2 tires might shave a bit more off the lap time. This makes the M5 Competition slower than the M4 GTS and now I’m really curious to see how the M8 Competition would compare.
