The new four-cylinder M2 Racing will be competing in the U.S. in 2026, in both the SRO TC America and IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge series, where it will have its own M2 Challenge class. BMW of North America Motorsport & Customer Racing Manager Adam McGregor gives us some more details on the new M2 Racing and how the IMSA program came about.
BimmerLife: We’re used to seeing the previous generation M2 in SRO, but how did the IMSA program in the VP Racing SportsCar Challenge series come about with the new car?
Adam McGregor: The M2 has historically been in the SRO TC America series and we’re going to continue there, but this year we’re also expanding to bring it to IMSA, which was initiated from the IMSA side. They had an idea to expand the M2 into IMSA competition. It was outside the traditional IMSA weekend for us so at first it was sort of different, but we looked into it more and we thought it would be a good outlet to get more cars into the hands of customer teams. It’s good having the car in SRO, but there’s a lot of customers that like IMSA too, so having the car in both series helps us. We’re trying to keep the spec of the car as close as possible in both series so that customer teams can easily move from series to series. Not having to change the spec of the car to go from one series to the next opens it up for customers to use the cars more.
BL: Can you comment at all on how much interest there has been in the car from U.S. teams?
McGregor: At the end of the day, the interest has been high and it’s mostly been from race teams, which is really where we want these cars to go. The M2 gives teams a great opportunity to race a car that has lower running costs, a lot less than GT4. There’s also interest from track day guys, but the priority for car deliveries is for race teams first. Right now (the interview was on December 22nd), we have nine cars being delivered after Christmas. We think three of those cars will end up in IMSA and the rest in SRO. That’s based on what people are telling me, but what people tell me and what actually happens could be different.
BL: Will BMW of North America have support at IMSA events for the car?
McGregor: For IMSA the level of support will depend on how many cars there are, but there will be an engineer at every race to support teams, which is what we’ve always done.
BL: Has there been any pushback on the car since it’s a four-cylinder and the M2 street car is a six-cylinder?
McGregor: There are some people that look at the car and say ‘oh, it’s a four-cylinder and doesn’t have as much horsepower,’ but once you drive it, that can change the narrative. I always go back to the E30 M3, which was a four-cylinder homologation special. The new M2 Racing is also a four-cylinder, so is really going back to our roots almost, with the E30. In terms of speed, the lap times at the Nürburgring last summer were by and large similar to the previous six-cylinder M2, but the big thing is really the running costs. With the previous generation M2, the running costs were almost at the GT4 level. The new car is definitely bringing the running costs down and is attractive to teams that want to control costs more. There’s a lot of the race car that is taken from the M2 street car, and I really think that’s a reflection of how robust the M2 street car is. The race car has a different motor of course, but overall, a lot of what’s in the race car comes from the M2 street car. Another cool thing about this car is that it’s the first race car that we’re producing on the production line.
BL: Does having a four-cylinder in the M2 Racing create any marketing challenges with the six-cylinder M2 street car?
McGregor: There’s some perception that it’s a lesser car, but that’s coming from the more casual street car people, who always want more car and more horsepower. For those guys, it’s been hard to sort of get the message across of what this car is for. We could certainly build a GT4-level M2 but then it would be competing with the M4 GT4, so there’s no point to that (a six-cylinder would also make the M2 Racing ineligible for SRO TC America). The whole point of this car is to fit in the window of another class.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy BMW, Gruppe C Photography]
