Even Better! NEW BMW M5 Competition LCI 0-62 in 2.99 seconds! Road and track Review 2021

What a machine! Hey guys, welcome to my video on BMW's brand new and facelifted M5 Competition. Before we start the review, I want to say a big thanks to my sponsor for this video, BOTB. BOTB are the dream car competition company and they actually give away two cars every single week. They now have one of these M5 Competitions to give away. This could be yours for just under a fiver for one ticket but you can buy as many as you want and you're also in with the chance of winning £20,000 worth of cash in the boot. If this M5 doesn't take your fancy, they've recently added the new M3 which I've just ordered and the new M4. They've actually got 150 odd cars to choose from and tickets start at just 85 pence. You need to be 17 years and older to enter the competition and the link for it will be below in my description and also in a pinned comment. Competitions close at midnight every Sunday so why don't you head over there using that link and see if you can win yourself something like this beautiful M5 Competition. In line with the rest of the BMW 5 Series range, BMW have facelifted this M5 Competition. They call it an LCI which is As you know, in the UK we can no longer get the normal or regular M5. In fact, they took that away from us about two years ago now so we're stuck with the hardcore M5 Competition which, as many of you might know, I absolutely love this car. It's one of my top three favourite cars or at least the pre-facelift was so I'm hoping that this new updated version lives up to my very high expectations. In terms of exterior changes, well let's start around the front. We've got a brand new M-style double grille which is one piece now so kind of in line with the rest of the updated BMW range. We've also got some new headlamp units. This car's got laser lights because it's fully loaded and you can tell that they're laser lights from the blue stripe across the top. They're almost like blue eyebrows if you like. The bumper itself has also been re-profiled so much more aggressive and bigger air intakes. I think they look really good and just add that little bit more aggression to this otherwise perfect looking car. Once we get around the back of the car there's some new 3D LED light clusters that sit above a restyled diffuser. Underneath the skin everything's pretty much the same so we've got the same 4.4 litre V8 twin turbo produces 625 horsepower and 750 newton meters of torque. The suspension apparently has changed so the shock absorbers are now the same ones that are in the M8. Whether or not they're any different improve the slightly harsh ride of the M5 competition we'll soon find out. Jumping inside the car everything's very familiar and hasn't changed too much. Still got the same steering wheel with the M1 and M2 buttons at the top there. Same paddles, similar dashboard, the best seat on the planet which I'm sure I'll talk about more once we're out on the road. In terms of actual changes for this facelifted car well we've got a much bigger 12.3 inch display screen there so we've still got operating system 7 but it's a lot easier to use now. We've also got a couple of new buttons down here so we've got the M mode button and the setup button so the setup button just allows you to go into your M preset buttons if you like and play around with whatever you want so you've got engine on there you've got chassis on there steering and then of course this has got the M xDrive system so you can have it in four-wheel drive where it sends you know power fairly equally to all of the wheels. Four-wheel drive sport where it sends a lot more power to the rear wheels and you can in fact disengage the front axle altogether and run rear-wheel drive only but rear-wheel drive only this time of year in the UK probably not recommended with 625 horsepower but BMW do recommend that you only use that on private lands or on tracks and stuff. The other button we've got down here is the M mode button which I first used and discovered in the M8 coupe and it's in the M8 grand coupe too. It just allows you to quickly turn off all of the pedestrian safety unnecessary screens and stuff in here so if I was using this on a track day I would cycle through from road to sport and then I'd go to track and I would hold it down and that basically turns off all of these screens activate track and I've got a really nice sort of sporty gauge cluster in front of me I can see my tyre pressures etc exactly what you want to see on track and I've got a head-up display in this car so those two buttons are really handy and something that we're kind of getting used to now in new M cars so the new M3 and M4 are going to have a very similar setup right let's take this car out for a drive and see what it's all about Here we are in one of my all-time favourites although this is the facelifted car it has got a lot to lose because when you've put a car up on a pedestal for so many years it's one of your absolute favourites when they bring along a facelift you do worry about the small changes they've made have they ruined an already brilliant car well in terms of styling we've already looked around that and I think if anything it looks maybe a little bit better than the previous generation they definitely haven't ruined it and when you get inside the extra tech well who doesn't want a bit of extra tech that screen does look massive but it doesn't get in your eye line or in your way when you're in the cabin in terms of the actual setup and M mode buttons well again they're helpful so really the facelift they haven't ruined that aspect of it what you might have noticed is there's no cracks and pops when you rev the engine that's because this LCI car now has the dreaded OPF filter in it so you do lose a little bit of the character of the 4.4 litre V8 twin turbo especially on the overrun or when you're changing down gears you don't get any pops or cracks but it has retained 90% of the rest of the soundtrack the M5 is such an easy car to live with it's so practical it's so comfortable it's just a joy and every time I have one I never put the keys down I don't want to tell you how much fuel and how much money I've spent on fuel the time that I've had this car but I'm always maximizing the opportunities I've had four adults in here went out for a little day trip the other day with no issues whatsoever loads of room in here and the boot is absolutely massive and when you're in the back it's a really nice place to be this one has got the rear entertainment and it's just got charging ports and you've got four-way climate control so it's a really nice and comfortable place to be back there in terms of the ride comfort well that's probably the one negative that I've talked about in the past with the M5 competition especially here in the UK and in fact when I'm in the default comfort or drive mode that this car starts up in it's obviously in a comfort setting on the suspension and even my M2 button which is my spirited driving button for the public road even that is set to comfort and suspension because you just don't need any more it's still a little bit too stiff I guess for the typical British A or B road but it's helped massively by these seats which are just so comfortable and that will continue to be my one small complaint about the M5 competition is how stiff the ride is but the flip side of that is it's very very good when you're pushing on do I notice that this has now got the M8 competition shock absorbers no if you hadn't told me that I wouldn't have noticed that's for sure it feels pretty much the same as the pre-LCI car I had at the beginning of the year and the one before that so stiff but not uncomfortable let's take it up a notch I've just pressed my M2 button which basically gives me a sharper throttle the chassis stays the same as we talked about so I've still got comfort shock absorbers and I've got four-wheel drive sport so it sends more power to the rear wheels if I was on a track or a bit of a bigger road I'd probably turn everything off because it's still a very planted and capable car in terms of its pace for the public road well like many cars it's just so fast it really is it's way too fast to drive properly on a typical road and in fact it has a 0-62 claimed time of 3.3 seconds which is the same as the pre-facelift and earlier on I actually tried that out with my race box so let's jump to that and see what sort of time I managed to achieve in this car in slippery conditions okay guys launch control in the facelifted M5 competition race box is ready I've got all traction control devices switched off it is a little bit greasy out there so not ideal conditions but here we go left foot hard down the brake right foot hard down the accelerator launch control active here we go 2.99 seconds 2.99 seconds that's the fastest I've ever recorded on the race box ever 2.99 GPS to 62 miles an hour as I'm sure you'll agree that is just ridiculous sub three seconds to 62 miles an hour for a family saloon car with me fuel slippery conditions and also Pirelli P Zero tyres hasn't even got the Michelins on it so in the dry with the Michelins I reckon you could get a 2.8 062 time which is just ludicrous that's close to an F1 car in a 5 series absolutely madness what makes the M5 competition so good is the small tweaks and changes they've made to the suspension and the geometry a bit of extra negative camber it's slightly lower the springs are a little bit stiffer and that really comes into its own when you start pushing on with this car really feels so sharp and so good I remember the first time I tried it two or so years ago and I just couldn't get my head around something weighing two tons that's so big and luxurious and comfortable handling so well and so pin sharp you turn the nose in and it just it's just lovely and then you feed the throttle in and the mx drive is just fantastic I talk about it all the time it is a brilliant setup don't be put off by it thinking oh it's not a real bmw because it has mx drive you can turn everything off and you can decouple the front axle if you want to be a real hero but even in four-wheel drive sport or four-wheel drive with all the traction off it does big skids on private land obviously and feels like a magic rear-wheel drive car by which I mean it will get the angle going and when you want to bail out of the skid you just turn into it and it just rockets you down the road or the private track it's amazing and actually talking about private tracks I was very fortunate to drive one of these not this exact car it was a grey one at goodwood a couple of weeks ago so let's rewind to that and you can join me for a lap of goodwood I had an instructor next to me and I had to have all of the traction aids turned on unfortunately but still you will get a real sense of how fast and how capable this car is on a circuit I mean it's not a track car how many people are going to track their m5 competitions but if you do and it's a nice big fast circuit like goodwood it's going to show a lot of very very fast cars your heels unbelievable through the tight chicane where this two-ton car should feel really heavy but it's quite unbelievable at the start finish straight it's 100 110 120 130 on the brakes hard let's see if we can carry a bit more speed through this time it's really hard to be it's blind over that brow flat through here oh so easy I mean I could have off the accelerator settle the car a little bit back on it again track drops away fantastic unbelievable what a piece of kit amazing this is a 5 series all right let's try and get this better this time a bit later into the apex there we go lovely open it up what a machine what a machine 55 that time oh moving around all over the place under the braking unbelievable miss the apex a little bit there probably scaring my amazing instructor next to me right apologies for the lack of talking I'm just focusing wow I hope you enjoyed that I was so impressed with this car and I'd love to go back there on my own track day and turn everything off because I think you could get some lovely big four-wheel skids and in fact like all M cars when you've got the traction aids turned on you actually do inherently get a little bit of understeer because they're just set up that way and the way the traction control works it's constantly trying to peg you back which kind of induces a bit of understeer so when you turn everything off you can just adjust the car much nicer sort of mid corner you can get it to rotate a little bit so I'd love to have a go with everything switched off it would just be so incredible and so capable and I really really do think that it would run rings around a lot of sports cars and keep up with some supercars out there something I get asked about a lot on social media is would I have an m5 competition over a m8 competition grand coupe like the one that I took to the selvio pass a couple of months ago it's a very good question there's about 20,000 pounds worth of difference between the two the m5 being cheaper not that you could call this cheap but the better value almost and I have to say that this car is better in pretty much every single area it's far more practical it's a more comfortable driving position better seats much better visibility huge boot but obviously that falls into the practicality stakes again and I love how understated the m5 is and always has been for those that know will know and those that don't well who cares but then I guess the argument is that you know the m8 grand coupe is a beautiful car and if you're buying that you're probably buying it as a bit of an image statement as well because it looks every bit as good as it's 120,000 pound price tag base price but something else that I have to talk about with this car over the m8 grand coupe I actually think this is a better road car it feels like it handles better and the main thing and most important thing for me as we come up to this cyclist on a narrow road is thank you cyclist the m5 competition shrinks around you on a small road like this whereas the m8 grand coupe or the coupe just feels so wide really really does it would feel at least a foot wider down this road and it's only a couple of inches wider so that is really handy in the uk especially where we have very narrow roads like this and you can actually pilot the m5 competition down a road like this like it's a much smaller car it doesn't feel any wider than my m2 competition and that is a massive bonus another car we need to talk about is bmw's new m5 50i which I drove very recently I only spent about half an hour behind the wheel of that but it's an impressive car and it retails at about £30,000 less than this m5 competition so there's certainly space for that car in bmw's current lineup over here we don't get the normal m5 so it kind of is the normal m5 in the sense that it's a much better ride and if anything it's probably a better overall package for the uk what that car doesn't have is the sharpness of this car and the outright performance I know there's only about 80 horsepower difference between the two but this is still quicker it really is it's such an impressive bit of kit not to mention all of the individual settings that you've got that you don't get in the m5 50i so this is still worth that extra money but if you want something that's really going to fulfill everything the family duties still be fun the m5 50 might arguably be the better car here in the uk I would still have the m5 competition though and these things do have better residuals tend to have better dealer contribution discount so actually when you're looking at it on a pcp these don't work out that much more than an m5 50i guys thanks a lot for watching this video on bmw's very latest m5 competition I hope you enjoyed it massive shout out and thanks to botb for sponsoring this video and continuing to look after me they've been a great support over the past 18 months or so and I couldn't continue to run my channel without those guys so massive thanks remember to check out the link below and head over and see if you can win yourself an m5 competition or one of their 150 odd other cars also go over and check out yes auto's website there's a link to that in the description below I'm doing some unique content for them I've got my own page on the yes also website and in fact I'm doing a separate video with this m5 competition over there so head over and check that out and hopefully you enjoy my alternative content on their channel thanks a lot for watching give us a thumbs up if you enjoyed this and I will see you at the next video cheers