BMW M340i on track and on form

Monday, 31 December 2018

No words, no music - just the BMW M340i on a race track!

For a while now BMW has struggled to come up to a proper answer to Audi's not-quite-RS mid-size cars - the S4 and S5 - which are basically powered-up standard cars that are plenty fast and still offer plenty of luxury, yet don't quite tip over into full-on serious performance territory that the RS4 and RS5 hunt in.

Sure, things like the 340i M were powerful, fast and great to drive (well, largely), but they lacked the cachet and credibility that the separate S-branded cars have. And just to make things worse, Mercedes has got in on the mid-level performance car game with the introduction of its AMG C 43 as well.

So something needed to be done - and that something will debut in New Zealand in July 2019 in the form of the M340i xDrive, the powered-up AWD replacement for the 340i that finally discards BMW's mincing around with the M badging and focuses the M Performance brand more directly on the competition.

More aggressive bumpers with larger intakes are the biggest hint that you are looking at an M340i.

While we were at the launch of the all-new 3 Series a while back, we were lucky enough to not only get a sneak peak at the M340i well before it goes on sale, but also thrash it around a challenging race track for a bit for good measure.

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Not wrecking the unreleased car is a priority at these things. Not slamming it into the back of another one is even more of a priority.

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Although the Portimao circuit can hold 100,000 people, the seats were thankfully empty when the journos were let loose.

* More range, no more money for electric BMW**

The 3 Series was launched in Portugal, at a location that was handily close to the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve - more commonly known as the Portimao Circuit - a Formula 1 test track that has also hosted FIM Superbike, FIA GT and GT3, Le Mans Series, GP2 and A1GP (remember that?) rounds.

With the M340i BMW finally has a direct competitor to the the Audi S4 and Mercedes-AMG C 43.

Opened in 2008, the Portimao track is 4.692km of challenging and unpredictable curves and elevations that have been compared to the Nurburgring and Spa-Francorchamps due to its constantly undulating nature. Racing drivers love it because of the number of fast downhill sections that finish with tight, but wide corners, allowing for big, dramatic passing moves that could end very badly if you mess it up, but give you the room to at least take the chance.

And it is those very undulations and fast corner approaches that make it so incredibly intimidating the first time you head out on it.

With its changes in elevation and fast corners, the Portimao circuit is challenging, but utterly exhilarating.

Heading out onto the track in theM340i, the first thought that struck me was 'Wow. There are so many corners that look exactly the same as you go in but come out the other side so differently…', which doesn't do anything for your confidence on an unfamiliar track. The wide corners and generous runoff areas with very distant walls, however, gave a degree of that confidence back because, even if I did stuff up magnificently, the chances of doing much worse than an embarrassing axle-deep submergence in the gravel weren't all that high. And I can live with embarrassment.

Comprehensively destroying one of the few early-build M340is in existence, however, would be far harder to live with.

Although BMW had already revealed the go-faster version of the standard 3 Series, our cars were fully camouflaged, more out of a sense of drama than anything else as details of the car were well known - powered by a 270kW/500Nm version of BMW's turbocharged inline six-cylinder engine, the company claims a 0 to 100km/h sprint of 4.4 seconds (a mere 0.1 of a second slower than the current M3 sedan).

It has more aggressive aero-influenced bumpers than the standard car, but stops short of the angry bulges and gaping intakes of the M3 and M4, making it a potentially ideal Q-car, with its restrained looks hiding serious performance.

So did it? After all, a race track is the best place to find out.

Except it really isn't though, because a good road car can often seem rather underwhelming on a race track, while a great track car is usually an awful road car. And it seems likely from our track time with the M340i that it will be a rather good road car indeed; mainly because it felt a little uninterested in truly attacking the track.

Effortlessly fast and superbly composed, the M340i wasn't particularly interested in super-aggressive laps or sideways, tyre-smoking drama, even though it was capable of both if pressed. Instead, its focus was clearly on providing that incredible ride quality we raved about in the standard 3 Series, while also being remarkably sharp and precise.

There was a tad more body roll than we would have expected (still not a lot though), but that also points towards and effortlessly fast point-to-point road car, while it didn't actually compromise it on the track in any way whatsoever.

Don't take that the wrong way though - a good road car should feel a bit like that on a track, because it has to be set up for on-road comfort first - particularly in the segment that the M340i is aimed at. After all, if you wanted full-on track attack levels of competence, you would be in the market for an M3.

The brakes were simply superb, with a strong, confident feel that not even a lot of seriously big stomps on the pedal, courtesy of those fast downhill approaches into corners that we mentioned earlier, even began to dent.

Adding to this late-and-hard-on-the-brakes approach to the corners was the sheer composure of the chassis and the drama-free transmission of power to the road by the AWD system and excellent electronically-controlled locking rear differential.

Drop the M340i into Sport and wind everything up to 11 and it is a fast and angry thing that is a precisely calculated distance shy of an M3. It blends the comfort and superb ride quality of the new 3 Series with performance that should worry Audi S4/5 and Mercedes-AMG C 43 owners deeply, although like the Audi, it does seem to do it all a little too slickly and effortlessly, lacking the raucous, angry edge that AMG still allows the C43.

But then BMWs have always been about open roads with lots of corners. And we suspect the M340i will be rather special indeed through the uniquely challenging ones that our local roads will provide it with.