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BMW's super saloon recipe has come a long way since the original E28 M5
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In this series, we'll be visiting four very different circuits in the UK
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all of them Evo favorites and home to our track day and evening events
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Should be fun, so let's get cracking. so welcome to brand's hatch folks one of the uk's most iconic and just best circuits to drive on
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it's a bit difficult to get your head around sometimes brand's hatch because it's quite
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daunting to begin with. The lap is very short and very intense but it's a cracking circuit to drive
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in any car but especially one like this new M5 competition. And once you've sussed out how to
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approach the extreme undulations you get at Paddock, Druids, up here at Clearways as well
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well it's just a fantastic circuit to drive on. You will fall in love with it. I did, albeit a long
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time ago and this is why. To begin with it was cold and wet on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit
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so I scrolled through the M menu to find the right settings to suit the conditions and also
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to allow the M5 to work best over the tricky curbs that there are all the way around Brands Hatch
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So it's still drying out a little bit of Brands Hatch and for the time being I am in well I've
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got the engine in Sport Plus I've got the transmission in S3 well steering in
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Sport I've got four wheel drive system in Sport and the DSC system in MDM which
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is the end differential setting which allows a little bit of slip as you can
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see but it still has that nice kind of safety net that it will throw out all its claws right here I just gone in a tiny bit too quick through 30s there and I could just feel it starting to tickle the right rear brake just to
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kind of trim the rear axle from getting too far away from you. It's a sort of automatic hero button
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really because it makes it feel like you're correcting the slide and it does allow you to
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correct the slide. If you fail to correct the slide it kind of will throw everything out and
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just bring the speed right down and hopefully prevent you from having an accident but it is
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quite twitchy today so I do think that is the setting to be in interestingly I've got the
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chassis not in sport plus definitely and not even in sport but I've got it in comfort here
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because there's quite a few curbs that you need to ride around brands hatch
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in order to get the best out of any car really that being one at Graham Hill Bend that being
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another at the exit of Grand Hill. The really key kerb that you want to ride is here at
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Surtees. You want to take absolutely as much inside kerb as you possibly can. You get a
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little bit of brake knock-off on the way through to the entry of clearways here, but forget
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that. You don't go anywhere near any of these kerbs at clearways. They're too slippery
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The consequences of getting it wrong there are too great. I mean, it's laying fast the
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competition it really is it's the torque not just the power I'm in four wheel drive and I've got all
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the intelligent bits switched on trying to make it as quickly as possible it still wants to try
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and speak me sideways in fifth gear at 100 miles an hour down the pit straight I think this is
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probably the trickiest bend to get right at Brandt's hatch it's grand hill it used to be a lovely
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much faster, much more fluid corner, but now they've made it into a much more technical
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easy to get wrong, easy to out-break yourself on the way in. But that's where your lap time goes around here
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and where you get it back by being really neat and tidy. The Indy circuit at Brands is as short as it is intense
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and the track itself sits in a natural valley which means there are tricky cambers to deal with pretty much all the way around the lap Some of these cambers are negative especially the ones at clearways which means traction then becomes a crucial factor to a good clean lap
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And so this, roughly, is how to put together a lap of brands in a 625 horsepower M5 competition
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Into paddock. I'm in fifth gear, now I go down to fourth. We'd probably take it in third in bone dry conditions but it's wet so I'm in fourth
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I don't want too much torque. Get on the power as early as you dare
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Up the hill into Druids which I'm going down to third floor through here just to be calm
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on the throttle. Third at the exit on the way down to this awkward corner at Graham Hill
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Still in third gear. Lots of craziness on the way in and on the way out and then 30s
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Fourth gear commits. It's all about how fast you can turn it to the corner and get away with it
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and still manage to stop for clearways. Great call of 30s. As is clearways, but it's all about the traction
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Fourth, still can't go anywhere near fourth. Rock, fourth, fifth. Now I can just about give it fourth rock
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105, 128, I saw there. That's not bad for a road car
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128, in the wet, into paddock. So that's a lap of the Brands Indy with the M5 in its fastest, most efficient settings
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But what happens if you press the buttons that disengage the rear axle
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and switch the Dynamic Stability Control System off? You're just going to, aren't you
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Somebody gives you Brands Hatch. all to yourself for the day and an M5 to play with you, then you're going to give it a bit
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of that, aren't you? My gosh, it does do it easily though. Hello people in Clearways
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Hope you enjoying your lunch It just outrageous It outrageous what you can do in this car In all its various modes but when you switch everything off the kind of full scale old school hot rod that
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lurks within, fortunately every M5 including this one, just comes bursting out
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and you could just do that sort of thing in it forever
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It's just brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And I guess that's the thing about this M5 competition
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It's a massive, massive range of abilities. It's a really fast, really well-sorted, really efficient sports saloon
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saloon one minute you put it in the right settings then you can dial the electronic
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assistance back a bit dial it back a bit more and it's still very safe but it just gets kind
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of quicker and more focused and then you can go all the way and just switch everything off
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undo the front axle and drive it like that and everything in between what a vehicle I've really
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enjoyed doing this series. Thank you BMW. So that's what you can do in a BMW M5 competition
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in a range of conditions and in a variety of settings with either a bit or a lot of help
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from its ingenious electronic systems or none whatsoever. And whichever way you choose and
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however confident you are in your own abilities, the M5 really does have something for everyone
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It is quite some car, is the BMW N5. Always has been, and hopefully always will be, for
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as long as they keep making it. So cheers for watching this series, and stay safe
