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.