Germany ‘s Sport Auto is well known for giving an honest assessment of road cars at the track. Namely they ‘ve famous for their Hockenheim and Nurburgring show-downs. So it ‘s worth a quick note on BimmerFile about their latest test. The magazine finally got their hands on the 1M and immediately made their way to that other famous F1 track Hockenheim. Let ‘s get to the numbers. The 1M did the F1 track in 1:14.1. Ok you say, but how does that compare to the supposedly faster M cars? Here ‘s a quick list (after the break)…

– BMW E46 M3 CSL —————————————— 1:13.5 min
– BMW 1M —— ————————————– 1:14.1 min
– BMW M3 V8 E92 ————————————– 1:14.3 min (R compound tires)
– Audi TT-RS Coupe ————————————– 1:14.3 min
– BMW M6 ————————————————– 1:14.4 min
– BMW M3 V8 E90 ————————————– 1:14.6 min (R compound tires)
– Alpina B6 S —————————————- 1:14.8 min
– BMW M3 E46 ———————————————- 1:16.3 min
– BMW M5 E60 ——————————————— 1:16.5 min
– BMW Z4 M Roadster ———————————– 1:16.7 min
– BMW sDrive 35i Roadster ———————————– 1:16.6 min
– BMW 335i E90, facelift ————————————– 1:17.0 min
– BMW Z4M Coupe ——————————————— 1:17.2 min
– BMW 135i ————————————————— 1:17.4 min
– BMW M5 E39 ———————————————— 1:17.6 min

So why is a 335hp car faster than the 414 hp M3?

Without having driven it we can only look at what ‘s on paper and what we ‘ve heard. In our minds it comes down to several things:

– weight
– more torque
– underrated power figure
– shorter wheel base (which could help at a track like Hockenheim).

So what does this mean for the ‘Ring? We know BMW ‘s un-official time shows it slightly slower than the E92 M3. Rumor is that the difference is the back-straight where the M3 simply has more legs to stretch. Either way we ‘ll know the truth when Sport Auto drives down the Autobahn another hour to the ‘Ring. We expect that soon. Until then you can see the current lord of the ‘Ring time list here.

And go buy your copy of Auto Sport here.