The BMW M2 is the new record holder for compact cars at the Nurburgring. The model completed a lap in 7 minutes and 38.71 seconds.
The Green Hell. The track that has it all. The trickiest and riskiest of them all, too. 12.943 miles (20.830 kilometers) of our madness. That is the Nurburgring Nordschleife. And breaking records there is all sports car, supercar, and hypercard manufacturers dream of, as if there are no other racetracks in the world. The BMW M2 did it, too.
Wearing track tires and having Development engineer general setup BMW M Jorg Weidinger behind the wheel, the BMW M2 ran the lap in 7 minutes and 38.71 seconds. Last year, the M2 Competition covered it in 7 minutes and 52.36 seconds, being more than 13 seconds slower than the current version.
The gap between them is easily explainable. The M2 Competition came with 410 horsepower. The 2023 M2 gets 460 and does the 0 to 60 mph (0-97 kph) run in 3.9 seconds, compared to the 4.1 seconds of the previous generation. Top speed is 177 mph (285 kph).
First comes the TUV (Technischer Uberwachungsverein) inspection at the BMW Test Center located at the track side. The cars present at the track are thoroughly checked, weighed, all components scrutinized. The technicians document everything and take photos. All clear, but there is one condition: the weather has to stay dry.
But the team that broke the record with the BMW M2 had to fight the weather as well. Early morning, on the day of the attempt, the temperature was around freezing point. Only 7 degrees Celsius (44.6 degrees Fahrenheit) later, when the sun came up.
Jorg Weidinger said he would go out and drive, no matter what the weather was like. But its was not all up to him, as he depended on the seven-person team that was there to get the car ready with at least 24 hours before the run and then analyze performance data. The record would not be homologated without them.
After practice and warm up lap, the car got new tires, the tank was filled and off it went. All went according to plan along the 154 turns of the racetrack and the BMW M2 is new record holder for the compact cars at the Nurburgring, taking the crown from the Audi RS3 sedan, which completed the lap in 7 minutes and 40.748 seconds in August 2021.
No mods on the production car were carried out, except for the stock tires being replaced with track rubber. So the BMW M2 is powered by the twin-turbo 3.0-liter straight-six engine with 453 horsepower (460 PS) and 406 lb-ft (550 Nm) of torque, connected to an eight-speed Steptronic transmission.
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