If you didn’t already know, Mondello have some great track days and experiences. They’ve had a very successful run with the BMW M experience, upping the ante, Mondello have now added BMW M Competition cars to the mix. On top of that, there’s now a €220,000 BMW M8 Competition to play with. The M8 has a 4.4 litre, 625hp engine that can get you from your last meeting, to your next meeting across town in 3.2 seconds (0-100km/h).
Yes. Yes. Yes.
You now have a choice of three BMW M Competition cars to take around the track at Mondello. Take your pick. Or maybe you want all three? Either way, you’re going to have an absolute blast.
The highly trained instructors in Mondello will give you a driver briefing to start. They’ll tell you what the rules are and you absolutely must adhere to them. Listen to the instructors, they know what they’re talking about.
You start out on track in a Mini Cooper S, it’s small, light and has the right amount of power to take you around the track for your first couple of laps. This is to get you used to the curves, turns, speed and braking points on the track. Then you get to hop into your weapon of choice. And I use the term weapon accordingly as these machines are extremely powerful and must be respected as such.
So take your time, get comfortable and go. Getting out on the track is a mix of bubbling emotions and a bit of thinking back to your Physics classes in school. Sometimes it’s better not to think too much. Even though the M8 has an 8 speed transmission, you’ll never see past fourth gear on the track. You’ll hear a lovely warm rumble from the engine, but no pops or crackles, which would add to the drama. I’m sure there’s a setting somewhere for this but we didn’t have time to trawl through the endless engine / track settings to find it.
You might expect a car of this size to feel heavy, but no, the steering is perfectly weighted for this type of track driving. It’s got a huge amount of power (616bhp) and puts it down in all the rights places thanks to X-Drive. In its default 4WD mode, the M xDrive system has a rear biased configuration. You can use the setup menu to select 4WD Sport mode, which divert an increased proportion of power to the rear wheels.
The M8 Competition is reasonably relaxed as well and you could see yourself quite happily taking it on the Autobahn’s of Germany for hours on end as the cabin is decked out with supportive and configurable leather seats and a multitude of tech packs and suspension set ups. Back on track and it pushes on, nowhere near it’s limitations as you would need an entire airfield and then some to really test it. For now, you have the hills and crests of Mondello to test out some of the best the BMW range could ever offer you, happy M days.
