Article Summary
- The BMW M3 Touring 24h finished fifth at the Nurburgring 24 Hours, turning a fastest lap of 8m13.580s -- nearly two seconds quicker than the fourth-placed M4 GT3.
- The wagon's stiffer body shell helped it generate tire heat faster in cold overnight conditions, where the M4 GT3 struggled all race.
- The car races on at select 2025 events including Goodwood and Le Mans before its competition career ends for good.
No one expected the BMW M3 Touring 24h to be faster than the M4 GT3 it was running alongside. And yet. The Schubert Motorsport wagon, shared by Jens Klingmann, Connor de Phillippi, Neil Verhagen, and Ugo de Wilde, finished fifth overall at the Nurburgring 24 Hours — and for large portions of that race, it was genuinely quicker than the GT3-class cars wearing the same roundel. The fastest lap the Touring turned was an 8m13.580s. The fourth-placed Rowe Racing BMW M4 GT3 managed only an 8m15.405s as its best. Nearly two seconds off a car that, on paper, is the actual race car.
Why The Wagon Beat The Coupe
The short answer is tires. The longer answer involves why the Touring was better at warming them up than the M4 GT3. In quotes gathered by Motorsport.com, Klingmann explained that the M3 Touring’s body shell is stiffer than the M4’s — partly the structure itself, partly the roll cage. During the first test sessions, he had assumed that rigidity would be a liability, that it would make the car harsher over the Nordschleife’s notorious kerbs and bumps. He was wrong.
“Maybe not when riding over the kerbs, but to give the tyre a bit more energy here and there when it matters,” Klingmann told Motorsport.com. That stiffness turned out to be exactly what the Yokohama tires needed to generate heat in cold conditions. The Touring got them into the optimal working window faster. The M4 GT3 never did — at least not with any consistency overnight.
The Schubert-run M4 GT3 struggled all race with the same tire compound in the same conditions. It was clearly slower than the Touring, which in any other context would sound absurd.
BoP Gave The Wagon A Small But Real Edge
There was another factor. The Balance of Performance rules gave the M3 Touring 24h more wing angle to compensate for its aerodynamic disadvantage compared to purpose-built GT3 machinery — and with that came slightly more downforce. Klingmann also told Motorsport.com the Touring was allowed a bit more turbo boost than the M4 GT3 Evo. These are small things. But in a 24-hour race fought in cold temperatures where everyone is chasing tire temperature, small things compound.
“To be fair, the BoP also helped us a little bit to be on eye level, also in terms of top speed compared to others,” Klingmann said. He was not overselling it — the car still finished fifth, not first — but the combination of chassis stiffness, aero balance, and boost margin gave the Touring a narrow but genuine advantage on this particular track on this particular night.
A Short Motorsport Career Ending Well
The M3 Touring 24h has had one of the stranger arcs in recent BMW motorsport history. A wagon running at the Nordschleife as a serious competitive entry is already unusual. Running faster than the proper GT3 car in the same conditions makes it genuinely memorable.
The car will appear at a handful of events this year — a parade role before the Le Mans 24 Hours, the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and the MotoGP round at Spielberg. A return to the Nordschleife is off the table, also because we’ve heard through the grapevine (aka unconfirmed) that the car might have been sold already to a private customer.
In the end, a fifth-place finish and a faster lap time than the M4 GT3 is pretty amazing for a wagon that was never supposed to be here in the first place.
[Source: Motorsport.com]
