M-Performance makes full use of the opportunity.
It’s become something of a tradition for BMW to supply the MotoGP with safety cars, with the pack of bikes usually led by the very latest, brawniest, snarliest M car in the range. It’s no different for the 2018 season too, with the G30 M5 getting more than just a selection of stickers to designate it for duty.
The good news is, a lot of the kit on here can be specced to the upcoming production M5 too. Obviously not the LED lights up top or a lot of the graphics, but the carbon-fibre bits dotted here and there. These are all part of M-Performance’s latest catalogue of M5 optimisation parts, designed to reduce weight and sharpen the M5’s performance that little bit more over the standard car.
As such, the MotoGP M5 you see here wears carbon fibre spoilers front and rear, a carbon fibre kidney grille, carbon fibre rear diffuser, carbon fibre wing mirror cars, carbon fibre side sills, and an M-Performance titanium exhaust system with tips finished in, you guessed it, carbon fibre. All these parts can be specced to the production M5 when it arrives next year, with only the carbon-fibre front splitter seen here reserved for the safety car. The cabin also features one unique flourish, in the form of one-piece bucket seats that undoubtedly offer a discernible weight advantage over the powered pews fitted as standard.
While there’s plenty of carbon fibre everywhere you look, the powertrain hasn’t been fettled, and so it continues to produce 441kW and 750Nm from its 4.4-litre biturbo V8 (though that exhaust most likely turns the noise up by some margin). That power still goes to all four wheels as standard (a first for the M5), aided by an eight-speed automatic gearbox. But as not to upset motoring fans too much, there’s still a selectable mode that allows all of that power to be fed exclusively to the rear wheels, should you seriously want to devour your tyres.
The overall experience shouldn’t be that much different from what’s already offered from the M5, not that it needed much changing anyway, and will likely remain the foremost choice for those in the market for a large performance-orientated family saloon that can do the daily grind and be a weekend hoon-machine. With a 0-100km/h time of just 3.4-seconds and an electronically-limited top speed of 250km/h, there’s a reason why the M5 is spoken of in superlative terms. And since Alfa Romeo has pushed back its plans for a 5-Series rival until 2021, the BMW M5 can continue revelling in that position unperturbed for years to come.
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