New-gen BMW M4 teased in race car guise

- The M4 GT3 race car to debut in late-2020 season

- Will race in 2022 season as part of customer racing program

BMW has dropped a teaser for their new customer racing program’s race car. The M4 GT3 flagship customer race car will debut late next year before making a racing debut in 2022. Just like the M8 GT3 which previewed the M8, the new M4 GT3 will give us a glimpse of the new-gen M4 sports coupe.

What we know from this teaser is that BMW will retain the massive kidney grille on the new M4. First showcased on the Concept 4 at the Frankfurt Motor Show, the controversial grille is the new design direction from the Bavarian carmaker and it will surely go into production on the second-gen M4. Although the race car in the teaser has massive wheel arches, huge air vents and an enormous rear spoiler, the grille which drops all the way to the bottom splitters surely looks out of place. What we do like here are those sleek headlights which are identical to those seen on the M8.

Other details revealed with the teaser include the powertrain of the race car. The turbocharged S58 inline-six engine from the race car will also power the road-going M4 and will put out “more than 500 horsepower”. This engine already does duties in the X3 M and X4 M so we know that it is capable of producing 510 horsepower in the Competition variants.

After the M4 GT3 rolls out in end-2020, the 2021 season will be only for further development and testing. A full-fledged racing season will happen in 2022. But with the M8 GT3, BMW revealed the production model an entire year after the race car’s launch. So we don’t expect to see the production-ready M4 anytime soon and hopefully the new grille grows on us by then.