Formula Drift didn't exist when BMW launched its M division, turning its sport coupes into competition-ready, street-legal race cars. But times have changed, and it's nice to see the company expanding its motorsports interests with the 2020 BMW M8 Competition Coupe.

At least, I think that's what's going on here. BMW already races the M8 in sports car classes around the world, spawning the delightfully silly "Big M8 Meme" in which video editors make the already large race car three to 10 times the size of the other racers. Now, with the roadgoing version finally available (the race car's been competing for almost three years), our instrumented testing reveals an apparent push into professional drift competition, as well.

"I used all-wheel-drive mode to get the best lap," testing director Kim Reynolds reported after the figure-eight test. "In rear-wheel drive it's more of a drift mode—way too much power for that (but silly fun). Even in AWD, its obviously rear-biased in power. Its handling balance is really all about your right foot."

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I trust Kim's reports implicitly, but I had to test it myself—for science. Repeatability is important, and I absolutely repeated his sideways driving and tire-smoking. For a few laps, anyway, before the tread in the center of the right-rear tire melted and peeled off. Grand total, we'd done maybe 10 laps of the figure eight, which consists of two 200-foot skidpads centered 500 feet apart, so we're not talking about a long track here. The vast majority of sports cars we test don't shred their tires on the figure eight, even when we're trying to drift them for cool photos and videos (and science).

It's not the first time we've run into this with a big M car, either. The M5 Competition sedan had the same problem when our original series Head 2 Head was filming at Lime Rock Park racetrack. These big M's, it seems, really work their rear tires. It's hardly a surprise the M8 suffers the same issue, though, when it only weighs about 70 pounds less than the M5.

Yes, the M8 is heavy. Sure, M division has done a lot of hard work to make it about 160 pounds lighter than an M850i Coupe, but at 4,202 pounds, it's still a very heavy car for something with "competition" literally written across the back. A last-generation Cadillac CTS-V sedan, for comparison, weighs 100 pounds less than the M8, and like the M5 sedan, adults can sit comfortably in the back seats of the Caddy, more than can be said for the M8.

All that being said, the M8 laid down a blistering 23.3-second figure-eight lap at 0.88 average total g, plus 1.03 average lateral g in steady-state skidpad testing. To get an idea of just how impressive that is for a heavy car, consider it's quicker and grippier than the Acura NSX and BMW's own Z4 M40i. It's also a dead tie with the new C8 Corvette Z51 and only slightly less grippy. All those cars weigh hundreds of pounds less. Some of that can be attributed to the M8's massive power advantage, what with 617 hp and 553 lb-ft to move it, but getting those poor Pirelli P Zero's to hang on that hard with 2.1 tons of car and all that power thrown at them is pretty damn impressive.

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The lesson here is exactly what Kim said: How well this car handles depends entirely on how judicious you are with your right foot. Take it to a racetrack for anything other than a drift competition, and your lap time will depend on how precisely you can control the throttle. It has the mechanical ability to carry some serious speed through the corners, but it's entirely up to you to exploit it, and you'll spend a lot of time looking for the razor's edge between maximum performance and smoke show. If you are going to track it, go ahead and drop 3-4 psi out of all four tires before you go out, because they heat up quick, and pressures spike as soon as they get a little heat in them.

Don't think you have to take your M8 to a track to see for yourself, either. Any decent mountain road will achieve the same results, albeit with significantly less safety margin. Switch over to the vehicle information menu and the tire monitor page to watch the temperatures and pressures climb in real time as you rip up your favorite road.

Whether on the street or track, you have an important decision to make: Do you want steering feel or maximum performance? Switching the car between all-wheel drive and rear-wheel drive makes a big difference in performance, vehicle dynamics, and the assumption of risk. Rear-drive frees up the front tires from pulling triple duty steering, putting down power, and braking. Removing the power greatly improves steering feel and reduces steering effort, but it comes at a cost. With all the power going to the rear, you can distinctly feel the electronically controlled limited-slip rear differential pushing power to the outside wheel as you accelerate out of a turn. This is where fine motor control in your right foot matters a lot because the car is warning you too much will break the rear end loose, and too much isn't much throttle angle at all.

Engage all-wheel drive, and the feeling that you're juggling a hand grenade on the rear axle goes away as power is sent forward, and the front wheels help pull the car out of the turn. The car feels more stable and neutral, giving you much more leeway with the throttle before the rear end threatens to dance. It, too, comes at a cost: Nearly all the steering feel goes away, and the steering effort weights up. On the other hand, it doesn't introduce meaningful understeer as some all-wheel-drive systems do. The front end always has an enormous amount of grip, regardless of mode.

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I have no doubt all-wheel-drive mode will return faster lap times and boost the confidence of amateur drivers, and those are compelling arguments. If you're comfortable with an ass-y car, though, rear-drive mode makes for a more enjoyable sports car. The steering is light on center with effort building up gently as cornering forces increase, especially notable for an electrically boosted system. The active rear differential plainly announces when you're playing with the limits of rear grip, and it's on you to decide how playful you're feeling.

I've told you how much power you're dealing with, but let me contextualize it for you. The M8 flings itself to 60 mph from a stop in 3.3 seconds. That's damn quick for a big car, though it's only a tenth or two quicker than the less extreme, less powerful M850i and a tenth or three slower than a heavier M5. The quarter-mile mark flies by in 11.4 seconds when you're traveling at 124.6 mph, splitting the difference between two M5s we tested but finally gapping the M850i by up to half a second.

The numbers, though, don't describe the feeling when you're blasting through the 6,000-rpm power peak. The twin-turbo V-8 provides peak torque from 1,800 to 5,860 rpm and always feels like it's got more than enough to blow the doors off, but it's the sweet spot from just before the end of peak torque, past peak power, and just below redline the M8 feels like a Tesla Model S. Riding that peak feels like hanging on as the roller coaster goes over the crest. It's a small window, but for a moment you forget you're driving a four-seat grand tourer with the engine in front of you instead of behind.

Crank the transmission response to its full send mode with the little rocker switch on the back of the shifter, and it'll do everything you would. PDK good? Close enough on the road. If you're shifting manually, yellow warning bars appear at the top center of the digital gauges around 6,500 rpm, eventually turning red then flashing as you're about to hit the limiter.

Honestly, you can pull the upshift paddle as soon as you catch the first flash of yellow in your peripheral vision (and it's very noticeable). By the time you process it and actually pull the paddle, you'll have picked up a few hundred more rpm, and by this point you're past peak power and not gaining much by riding it out to redline. Shift a little early, and the engine will drop right back to peak torque and keep you in the hang-on-for-dear-life sweet spot.

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On the other end of things, the brake-by-wire system seems to wander between a bit too much and not quite enough. One corner, you get a ton of stopping power and sometimes over-brake for the corner. At the next, the pedal gets wooden at the end of its travel, and the stopping power isn't quite as strong, as if you somehow faded the carbon-ceramics going into the last corner—but you didn't. Sometimes it feels like you have a lot of modulation available in the pedal travel, and other times there's none. Still, on the whole, they're good enough to fool you into thinking it's a traditional mechanical system that needs more tuning rather than software that needs tweaking. More important, it works well, hauling the big car down to a stop from 60 mph in just 99 feet. Anything under 100 feet is crossing from sports car to supercar territory.

You wouldn't know it just driving around town, though. In daily life, the M8 Competition feels like a slightly stiffer, slightly louder M850i. In its softest mode, the ride is just tauter. The exhaust, even on start-up, is a mellow rumble— the valves allow it to sing in performance mode. The car hasn't been slammed to the ground like some performance models, so you're at only a slightly higher risk of catching the nose on a steep driveway or tall parking block. Left in its default mode, the throttle and transmission are lazy for a sports car, allowing you to loaf along like you're driving a 7 Series unless you wood it. The transmission's second of three modes is the one you want if you'd like to feel like you're driving a sports car around town, not a personal luxury coupe. Just take it easy, because in the urban jungle, the massive A-pillars that make it hard to see through a left-hand corner in the mountains easily hide pedestrians and cyclists.

This is far from the first time I've described a car as having a Jekyll and Hyde personality split, but it's the most appropriate. The M8 Competition is as docile and easy to live with as any lesser 8 Series in daily life, but it turns into a maniac at the push of a button. You should undertake the transformation sparingly. Like, say, when you're entering a drift competition.

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