BMW M2 Long Term Review, December 2024 Report

If you’ve already checked out our Mega Test in the November issue, or if you saw the cover story of this issue, you may already know that our Performance Car of the Year is the Ferrari Roma Spider, which you see here alongside our M2 at the BIC during the test in question.

Well, I also lapped the M2 around the 2-kilometre loop of the BIC that we use for our Mega Test – the more technical back half of the circuit – and the resulting headline is that the M2 lapped the circuit at virtually the same pace as the Ferrari Roma (just two-and-a-half tenths of a second slower to be precise).

Now, I did far more laps in the M2 than in the Roma to achieve that time, which is to say that the Roma could have gone quicker still but there was no point pushing it further. Every kilometre in a Ferrari costs a lot more than the equivalent distance in a BMW you see, and the Roma had already set the benchmark time. But that’s not to take away from the fact that this M2 – with a manual transmission and 159 fewer horses (453bhp compared with 621 in the Roma) – was virtually just as quick around this condensed lap. Of course, if we had thrown in the front and back straights, the Ferrari's margin would have been greater, but, as it stands, I’m happy to say that the M2 very much lives up to its Motorsport-inspired M badge on the tailgate.