600-HP Tuned BMW M3 Drag Races Porsche Taycan Turbo S To Prove a Point

Whenever tuning gets involved, predicting what will happen becomes a lot trickier since there's no real way of knowing exactly how those modifications are going to affect a car's performance.

Racing a BMW M3 Competition against a Porsche Taycan Turbo S would be a complete waste of fuel, electricity, and tire tread because we all know what would happen. The rear-wheel-drive-only Bimmer needs more than perfect conditions to deploy its power (warm weather, prepped track) whereas the EV will just dig its wheels into the asphalt and launch forward regardless of any variables.

Knowing this, do we really expect adding even more power to the M3 to make much of a difference? Well, it depends. Sending more hp and torque to the rear wheels at the start of the race is only going to hamper traction, but it might help the German sporty sedan to reel the Taycan in as the race progresses. At the same time, it could also result in wheelspin in second, maybe even third gear. 600 hp on a rear-wheel-drive car in a drag race is definitely a two-way street and lays some responsibility at the driver's feet as well.

Unfortunately for all BMW enthusiasts out there, the outcome of the two standing start races is kind of humiliating for the modified M3. Most of the nearly 600 hp claimed by the tuning company responsible for the project get wasted through major wheelspin, allowing the Porsche to disappear into the distance, never to be seen again.

It probably wouldn't have made much difference, but we feel launching over the painted part of the runway didn't help with the grip either. Moving the starting line a few yards forward would have taken care of that. Either way, there was simply too much power sent to the rear wheels for the tires to cope with – only McLaren seems to somehow know how to deal with that.

The rolling races provide a much more different scenario, one that's more in line with the relatively small power gap between the two (), especially when you consider the weight as well. They start at 30 mph (about 50 km/h), which is probably a little lower than what the BMW driver would have preferred.

The first race, they say, is a dead heat. To our eye, it looks as though the Taycan just edged it – the angle of the finish shot doesn't seem to be perpendicular to the track, hence the possible confusion. The second race only adds to the confusion as it provides us with the BMW M3 Competition's first win for the day - not by a lot, but it'll take it.

The question on our minds after watching the clip is just how good is the BMW M3 Competition with the German company's xDrive all-wheel-drive system going to be, especially after receiving a similar set of modifications? Better yet, we could see its output increased even beyond the 600 hp, so perhaps a rematch is on the horizon.