[James Dennison]

Hey all,

I’m the guy driving the M4 in the video. First off, thanks very much for watching and sharing on your forum. I hope you enjoyed. It was just supposed to be a bit of fun, and we are looking at how we can do more ‘scientific’ drag races in future.

Bit of background to the race. I launched the car 4 times that day and the launch you saw in the 2nd race (in the video) was the best I got. But it still wasn’t great. Admittedly, it wasn’t the best location as there was a slight incline on the circuit, but then the Porsche also had to deal with that (it got a perfect launch every time).

I tried to follow the launch procedure to the letter. Give it ample time to build boost pressure and then reacted as quick as I could off the line (I think I actually got away a bit sooner than the 911 in the second race), but the wheelspin started to occur at the top end of second gear.

I think there were a number of factors as to why this happened and other reviewers (such as CarWow) got a better launch. I suspect the biggest one, however, was the tyres. CarWow had Pilot Sport 4S, we had Cup 2s. As you all know, the grip and traction from the Cup 2s is fantastic when they’re warm, but very much the opposite when they’re not up to temp. We had about 5 mins sitting on the line between races, plus it was a cold day. My hunch is that if the car had the Pilot Sport tyres on, traction levels wouldn’t have been so tyre temperature sensitive and we’d have got a better launch.

Wanted to explain the above as I know it’s important!

Again, thanks for watching the video and if you could give us a sub that would be hugely appreciated.

James