BMW M2 Beats M2 CS Nürburgring Record with Less Power and More Aero
As cars get heavier, bigger, and more powerful, aerodynamic aids are becoming increasingly necessary, along with bigger brakes and wider tires, to extract the best from a car and keep it glued to the track. And just as Manthey Racing demonstrates with its Porsche upgrades, BMW has now shown that all the M2 needed to be the fastest compact car at the Nordschleife was more help bending the air to its will through a new M Performance Track Kit, recently shaving half a second off the record-breaking Nürburgring lap time set last year, lapping the Nordschleife in 7:25.068 minutes. You can watch that at the bottom of this article.
Last year's record was set by the faster, more powerful, limited-run M2 CS, and some, including me, felt that, as impressive as the time was, beating the previous record holder, the Audi RS 3, with a special edition was kinda cheating. Well, BMW returned to the 'Ring on May 22 to rectify the problem, because this Track Kit is for any ol' M2; it's "just" an options package.
BMW M Performance Track Kit Extracts More Performance Without Power
The M2 CS makes a fantastic 532 horsepower from its S58 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged six-cylinder, but the regular M2 responsible for this record uses the same engine but in a lesser state of tune (473 hp), including for the transmission. With the Track Kit, the M2 gains an adjustable front splitter, dive planes, a manually adjustable top-hung/swan-neck rear wing with a dedicated Race Mode (the splitter and wing are meant to stay in a certain, less aggressive setting when the car is driven on the road), and motorsport-derived yet road-legal coilover suspension with four-stage rebound and compression damping adjustment. The M2 gets 20 millimeters (0.7 in.) lower as a result, but BMW hasn't revealed any downforce figures. Still, it clearly works, with BMW test engineer for chassis development, the record-holding Jörg Weidinger overseeing the overall setup.
Related: Someone Built The BMW M2 Dakar That BMW Only Joked About
Yes, it's only half a second faster than an M2 CS over 12.944 miles, but at €23,500 ($26,834), an M2 (€77,500/$88,487) with the Track Kit (€101,000 total/$115,318) is still a lot cheaper than the limited edition (€115,000/$131,303). Sadly, this kit is being launched in Germany, not the U.S., but at least our M2 and M2 CS are cheaper, at $69,000 and $98,600, respectively, plus $1,175 for destination. Would the new M2 xDrive go faster? It's heavier, but BMW said the temperatures of both the atmosphere and the asphalt were high, so an AWD M2 could well find some performance in cooler temperatures, but ideal conditions are rare at the Green Hell.
An M2 CSL Could Still Happen
Last year, BMW M's veteran former head of engineering, Dirk Häcker, was asked by BMWBlog about the possibility of an M2 CSL. He said, "I think it's one of the options we can perhaps discuss in the next [few] years, because we have started with the car two years ago. It could be an option. The point is, what is the next big step to increase the performance? It's possible, but there's no decision to do that."
The G87 was first shown to the public in 2022, so it's currently around the middle of its life cycle, and that means BMW will doubtless find more ways to celebrate the model beyond just the CS. The remarkably composed M4-based (CLAR) G87 M2 is still more civilized than the rawer F87 that came before, but BMW has been slowly turning the wick up. BMW created the M2 in manual or auto, now with RWD or AWD, then the M2 CS, and now the M2 CS Track Kit. Perhaps all of these cars are helping BMW develop a new halo for the M2 before the next generation inevitably gets even heavier and makes the L in CSL even harder to justify.
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This story was originally published July 6, 2026 at 12:57 PM.