Let me start by saying this was truly a great experience to have been able to drive these cars at this launch event. I was able to experience this event with my wife, also an avid car fanatic (meg180 from 1addicts) and we were able to drive these beautiful cars on the track as well as tour a beautiful city, Istanbul.
We were able to get in to the city a couple of days early which afforded us the chance to see a few extra sights. BMW really took care of everything, from having someone meet us right as we got off the plane to getting us through customs to getting us to our hotel.
Our host hotel was the W hotel Istanbul, which was very trendy. As we pulled up to the hotel, M signs greeted us along with an M5 and M6 parked right outside! Inside, we were given M boxes which contained name badges and a cool M4 lanyard. There wasn't much time for rest, as BMW had arranged for small group tours for us to see various sights in the city with hired tour guides, who were excellent and gave tremendous insight into the city's rich history.
We were able to see some really beautiful places, such as the Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Hippodrome, Topkapi Palace, the Spice Market and the Grand Bazaar. Really gave a good feel for Istanbul.
The evening of our first day with BMW, we attended a preview dinner at one of the restaurants in Istanbul. We were able to mingle with the M people and other guests include the head of BMW M, Friedrich Nitschke (a really fun guy) and made some good friends along the way. BMW went all out and the food and drinks kept on coming! As the evening wound down, we were treated to a teaser trailer for the upcoming day which would include the chance to drive the M3/M4 on track at the former F1 circuit at Istanbul Park! BMW passed out little gift boxes with M labeled helmet head socks and everyone went to sleep excited. Felt like Christmas Eve!
The next morning we all boarded a large bus. BMW had M literature in the seatbacks for us to read on the approximately 1.25 hr trip to Istanbul Park circuit. The trip was pretty cool because we started on the European side of the city and crossed the Bosphorus Bridge to go over to the Asian side of the city (fyi Istanbul is the only city in the world divided into 2 continents).
As we pulled into the security gates for the track, an M6 safety car met our bus at the gates and escorted us to the track! very cool and I think this also happened to those who had previously attended the M VIP event that happened the week before.
As we exited the bus, BMW had all previous generations of M3 waiting outside to check out. We entered the building nearby and were greeted with lots of M3/M4 exhibits, some food and the chance to mingle with everyone. One car was wrapped up in black cloth, and was ultimately revealed to be the M4 convertible (not a huge shock to us, as we had already seen it at the NY auto show a few weeks earlier) but still beautiful nonetheless.
We then had some more talk from the M execs and then suddenly two garage doors opened on either side and a Yas Marina Blue M3 and Austin Yellow M4 drive in the building! Everyone is getting pretty excited by now. They now explain how we will be split up into 4 groups. Our group heads out to the track first to drive the M3 on track in lead follow format.
Our instructor gradually builds up the speed and having an E92 M3 myself and having done some track events, the M3 did not disappoint! The steering was great and the torque was fantastic. I was very pleased with the car. The exhaust note from outside was in truth not as flattering as the E92 and the M execs admitted it as well. But inside the car, when pushing it, the new car still sounded pretty damn good. We got to push it pretty hard, got to try out how the M lap timer worked with our iphone (really cool). Probably limited to pushing the car to 120mph-127mph mainly because in lead follow, you are limited to the slowest person in the group and there was some discrepancy in skill levels. BMW had programmed the cars to only be allowed to have M mode on or off, could not turn off DSC fully but still got a great feel for the car! Got about a couple of hours with the car between myself and my wife switching off. Several laps with cars rotating position to each try riding behind the lead car which was a matte black M6! The M4 would wait until after lunch.
After this, everyone's adrenaline was pumping -- we got to move to the autocross/slalom and spend several laps putting the best times down that we could. They really wanted us to compare the way the car felt with M mode on and off. Lots of fun! M boss Friedrich Nitschke even came out to watch us drive and complimented all the American drivers for doing so well. He was very eager to hear our reactions to the car and everyone loved it.
Then we had a chance to take a break for lunch, after which point we went to the slalom/autocross again to try some fun with the cars, this time with the course in the wet. Lots of the fun and the cars delivered.
We finally got to get back on the track for more lead follow, this time with an M5 lead car and a squadron of M4s. Personally, I loved the M4 but its all really subjective, the car drove pretty much identically to the M3, its just a question of which look you like better. My advice: study both in the color you like, and you'll know right away which one you like.
The lapping sessions seemed more intense this time, mostly due to our growing familiarity with the race circuit -- we were lapping harder and faster. One strange problem as I was midway through my session -- I felt a sudden loss of power one turn and the idrive (in german) showed an overhead picture of the car with a dot where the engine was -- seemed like the car briefly went into limp mode -- it corrected itself with a few seconds and went away, and never came back. We mentioned to the instructor when we came back to pits to switch drivers. They said to just keep an eye on it and they didnt seem to concerned about it for taking the car back out. The issue never recurred nor did anyone else I know of that day have this issue. I ultimately found a similar picture of this error screen from an f10 m5 post -- it apparently was for limp mode -- so not sure what that means, maybe it was just a software glitch? briefly unsettling, never had that issue on the track with my E92, but otherwise, everything went really well with the M4 on track.
After this, we were brought back in to prepare for hot lap sessions, now with the instructors driving the cars and they took us for a FAST lap around the track, with the cars that do have full dsc off and they were drifting around almost every corner. Lots of fun. They gave us personal USBs with our hot lap recorded.
Everyone then boarded the bus back to the hotel exhausted. We had a couple of hours to rest and then we were taken to the rooftop restaurant, Mikla for a very nice farewell dinner.
After another night's rest we had the chance to do some more sightseeing the next day before heading back to the airport and heading back home. Looking forward to the chance to do one of these experiences again in the future! Enjoy the pics!