► New 2015 MotoGP safety car
► Premieres new water injection system
► See it on production M cars ‘soon’
BMW has been the official car partner of MotoGP since 1999 – fitting for a company crafting its reputation on two wheels as well as four – so it should come as no surprise that it’s picked an M4 Coupe to be its next safety car for the 2015 race season.
As well as a serious matt black paint job with M tricolor accents and a huge carbonfibre rear wing, there is what’s claimed to be an important technical innovation on the M4 MotoGP safety car: it has water injection.
Munich says it will bring the technology to a production car ‘in the near future’ and this track car is the first time we’ve seen it in action. Additional radiators in the nose are used to cool the engine, gearbox and turbocharger while water injection cools the charged air more effectively than a conventional intercooler – improving performance, BMW says.
How does water injection work on the M4 MotoGP safety car?
Water stored in a five-litre reservoir in the boot is injected into the intake module as a fine spray, cooling the exhaust air pre-compression – and we all know that cool air is more oxygen-rich and better for turbocharged engines. Power and torque are claimed to be up, NOx and emissions down.
As well as the technical change under the bonnet, the full gamut of M Division extras are applied to this car, including the BMW M Performance titanium exhaust, carbonfibre rear diffuser, Recaro race bucket seats and a few other motorsport fripperies, such as a roll cage and LED light bar.
BMW and MotoGP
BMW M Division has recently signed up to continue its partnership with MotoGP until 2020. Which means we can expect something special in four years’ time, to mark two decades of the collaboration.
Click here to see the earlier 1-series M Coupe MotoGP safety car.
The 2015 calendar spans 18 races, kicking off in Qatar on 29 March and ending in Valencia, Spain on 8 November.
We guess the M4 safety car is a better fit than the X6 M it used for the same role back in 2009 – surely one of the most ill-suited pace cars of recent times…