"Honestly, the pure engineering answer is, you're much faster with paddles and an automatic transmission," BMW board member and head of development, Klaus Frohlich, told Road and Track at the 2018 Los Angeles Auto Show. "They're very precise and sporty. Especially on the Nurburgring, you are much better in control when you're not taking one hand away [to shift]. I think, in the overall portfolio, manuals will disappear. But I think M4 should be the fortress of manual. So the last manual transmission which will die, it should die in an M4, as late as possible. That's my view."
Link:
https://www.motor1.com/news/281877/bmw-m4-last-manual/