BMW M8 GTE – First Impressions

General

6th March 2019

iRacing's worst kept secret, the BMW M8 GTE, was released yesterday as part of the latest build. This car is probably the most infamous car on the internet of recent times, with a ridiculous amount of hilarious BIG BOI memes following it's introduction to Le Mans and the wider WEC last year. But how does it feel in iRacing? I took a quick break from feeling like death (my toddler daughter just loves to bring home illnesses from nursery) to get a few laps in around Daytona and find out.

Background

Over the past year or so I've pretty much only driven the Porsche 991 RSR, whether that's in special events, leagues like DGFX, or official races. I love the sounds it makes, and I've got used to the quirky way that it drives. It's a great looking car too. That said, my first love on iRacing was the BMW Z4 GT3 car, and I've been yearning for something with a similar feel ever since it started to get nerfed by the newer GT3 cars. I've been quite hopeful that the M8 could scratch that itch. It's got to be pretty damn good to achieve that.

I didn't have long to get this first impressions drive done, so I fired up iRacing and got the updates done. I then launched into a test session at Daytona at sunrise, because that's the last track I'd driven the RSR at. I had no time to do any setup work, so I stuck to baseline and got into the car.

The Looks

I've got to be honest, this car doesn't do it for me as much as most race cars do. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I think those BIG BOI memes have a lot to do with it. It's just too long, and looks too much like a salesman's workhorse in it's weekend party clothes than an all-out racing machine. Luckily the NOMAD paint does a lot to get it more aligned to my tastes, but it's still no Porsche or Ferrari. Luckily I won't need to look at it much from the outside!

The inside is very usual for a GTE car. Not much to say here, except that there's a bit of a potential design quick in where BMW positioned the lights that are used to indicate wheel lockups. The ones for the left hand side tyres are fine, but the right hand side lights are waaaaay over to the right. I didn't even notice they were there until my 4th or 5th lap.

The Sound

I hit the starter button to get the BMW running and OH (BIG) BOI. That noise. iRacing have done a great job of making this sound bang on what I've heard from on-board footage of the real thing. It sounds great. Lots of mechanical noises giving feedback to your inputs, creating a great level of immersion right from the off

The Drive

Leaving the pit lane for the first time, I almost did what I do with every new car around Daytona and slam straight into the pit wall. With that narrowly avoided, I head out to the horseshoe. I had decided to just go straight out as if I knew the car – how different could it be to the Porsche? Very, as it turns out. I hit the brakes, and get pleasantly surprised by the way this thing slows down. By the time I turn in, though, it seems I'm going a bit quicker than the front tyres want me to be going, and I'm greeted by a ton of understeer. Nevermind, learn for next time. By the end of the lap I'd done almost exactly the same thing at every corner, except the bus stop, which went very well indeed.

Over the next few laps I start to get a feel for what's going on with this car. It's basically the polar opposite of the Porsche. Where the Porsche is known for struggling on the brakes but loving being on the power as soon as possible on the way out of a corner, the BMW is much more comfortable on the way into a corner and struggles a bit when putting the power down. Although it's not got great turn in, what it does give is really positive feedback that lets you know how close to the limit you are, which makes it easier to get right up to it.

Does it feel as big as it looks? Well, yes. It almost feels like the engine is in the front, with the way that positive steering also feels heavy, and then the way the car rotates on exit and spins up the rears. It doesn't feel particularly wide though. It feels more heavy than big.

What I did have to do is keep adjusting the brake bias. I must have ended up 6 or 7 clicks towards the rear more than baseline, and I think I'd have gone even further given more time – I don't think I locked the rears once, but at baseline the fronts locked quite easily.

I also made a couple of adjustments to the TC traction control setting, to see if I could improve the feeling on the exit of corners. I didn't get much success there, so there's more experimentation to do. It's not so much that I found myself spinning the car, but there was definitely a lack of grip when rolling the throttle on. I would lay most of the blame on me and my time in the Porsche though, and I expect that the biggest fix will be to learn not to be so heavy footed.

Conclusion

My 9 laps around Daytona on baseline setup aren't enough to be able to decide whether this car ticks all the boxes I would need it to tick to move over from the Porsche, but the initial signs are pretty positive. As long as I can dial out some of the oversteer on exit and get used to how heavy it feels overall, I can definitely see myself getting on with this car for a while.