Driving BMW's championship M4 DTM race car, a missile with a mission

“You won’t need the DRS today,” says a German mechanic fastening my six-point harness belts. “Nor the brake cooling system,” he continues, tugging on my crotch straps rather uncomfortably. “We’ll fire her up, then you go when we give you the word." I look at the spaceship-like steering wheel trying to remember the sequence: Clutch in, hold down the yellow neutral button, then select first gear by clicking the carbon fiber paddle. Got it.

“BRAAAAPPPPP,” goes the V-8. The BMW M4 DTM race car bursts into life with the ferocity of a startled bear, and as I was imminently about to discover, it behaves unlike anything I’ve ever driven.

Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, also known as the German Touring Car championship, has long been considered one of the most enthralling sports car series in the world, although it’s fair to say that in recent years the racing hasn’t been as good as it once was. That may have something to do with the heavy technology involved, ensuring overtaking is more difficult; while BMW’s racer may be an M4 by name, it’s as close to stock as a peregrine falcon is to a pigeon.

For German manufacturers BMW, Audi and Mercedes, DTM is big business. Budgets are huge; their teams run with the diligence of a military operation. The carbon-fiber safety cells are identical for every DTM car, as mandated by the series. From that base, each manufacturer builds a bespoke race car designed for one thing: Beating the other Germans. You could compare it to NASCAR — if NASCAR actually let General Motors and Ford engineers build modern race cars instead of hobbling them with ancient technology for competition's sake.

And this year, BMW's car, driven by Marco Wittmann, was the fastest of them all.

I took a peek beneath the bodywork the night before my test drive, and what I discovered was a machine that looked more like a Formula One car than your typical Touring Car. As Top Gear’s photographer found out, BMW was incredibly guarded as to what resided under the skin, forcing him to delete roughly 500 pictures.

When I asked what components made it over from the production M4 into the race car, the engineer looked at me bemused: “Errr,” he pondered. “It looks a bit like it, I suppose,” he said after a while.

It doesn’t even have the same twin turbo inline-six engine. The naturally aspirated 4.0-liter V-8, code name P66, is restricted to 480 hp, consists of 4,000 parts and hits 62 mph in around 3 seconds. For a 2,447 lb. race car, that’s not all that quick, but then it’s not the power of a DTM car that shocks you – it’s the cornering ability.

Even the mirrors are perched upon what look like tiny rear wings. From every angle you notice downforce producing flaps and lips; it’s rumored that a DTM car at full speed creates enough downforce — north of 2,000 lbs. — to drive on the ceiling.

And what that means is it does things a roofed car has no business doing. In fact, it grips more like a purpose-built prototype — which is basically what it is, except with a familiar shell.

A small handful of journalists from around the world were allowed to sample the DTM, but only those with extensive race experience. We were to have three timed laps followed by a further four timed laps; given I didn’t know the Monteblanco racetrack in the south of Spain at all, and that we weren’t offered a chance to drive another car on it before venturing out in the DTM, that wasn’t a lot of time. After our runs, we'd compare our data with Marco Wittmann. Pushing hard, then, was a given — but not hard enough to risk wadding up a million-dollar piece of BMW machinery.

Having raced an Audi R8 GT3 race car just days before, the power and torque was a bit underwhelming (DTM teams are only allowed two engines a year, per car, so reliability is the focus). But then you hit the carbon brakes and the world you know changes.

They need a lap to warm up, during which you have no brakes at all. Once heated, around 60 lbs. of brake pressure is required to utilize them properly. If you comply, the rate at which it sheds speed is spectacular; turn 1 is a second gear, 40 mph hairpin, and you enter around 155 mph in sixth gear. First you see the 300-meter board, which you completely ignore. Then you see the 200, and you start merely contemplating the upcoming bend. At 100 meters? Nope, keep going, to around 90, where in a brief second your insides try to burst out of your throat. (Just look at my head in the video, you can see the incredible force under braking — something like 3g’s worth.)