Lexus IS-F vs BMW M3 vs Honda S2000 type S and Nismo 350 on the track.

Good one... The M3 smoked their collective ass.....

I wouldn't say smoked, The Z was leading the whole way. Plus, the Z left all of them in the dust off the line. I cry fowl here. It all looked staged to me or there was a bad driver in the Z.

monty, that is mostly due to the fact the M3 got stuck behind the slower IS-F. Had the M3 been in the front, it would have smoked the cars. Lucky for the 350z Nismo is that it had to start behind the S2000 which was no match for any of the cars

Maybe. but I 40k for the Nismo vs 60k for the M3. I would expect better performance for the extra 20 grand.

what about the IS-F, it got destroyed? Think of it like this, the M3 was very far behind and only had 1 lap to catch and pass the 350z. Like I said, had the M3 been in the lead it would have been no contest. That is why I am sure the M3 was the furthest back in the staggered start.

It's all set up man, don't be naive. Best Motoring did this all the time. If M3 doesn't win they won't get any BMW next time. Look who they put behind M3.

IS-F in fact corners better than I've thought. The weak point is clearly it's auto trans. I wonder why the driver did not even use paddle shift.

Nismo Z is clearly on par w/ M3, whether in acceleration or cornering. Considering it's almost 100 hp less and 1000 rpm rev lower than M3, it did a great job, especially in body control. M3 seems to be a little twitchy.

It's clear in the last 2 corners, Z's driver didn't brake early and hard enough, which reduced exit speed and let M3 catch up. Also, see how Z tails Tsuchya in M3 in the last corner? Besides, Z's driver, is not the most talented here, at least I've never seen him win in the 50+ BM video so far. The best driver in this video is in fact the guy on S2000, who has just won GT500 last year in Japan.

If Z revs to 8400 rpm M3 for sure stands no chance.

E92 M3 doesn't seem to have enough punch. Eventually it's not as lean as E46 M3.

Yes!!! BMW all the way baby, unstoppable.

Not suprised about the results but I'm quite amazed about what the Z-Nismo can do. Good Job M3.

BMW has built the M3 for a long time and its heritage shows. The IS-F s a good first effort but it is no M3 and it is obvious.

The video isnt working for me, can anyone post the ranking?

1. M3
2. ??
3. ??
4. ??

;P

if you know who was #1, then why would you care about the rest?

The M3 was #1, everybody else lost. Losers are irrelevant.

M3 and Lexus IS-F are about the same price. idiot

kraut .. S2000 had no business being there nor did the 350z nismo. I am sorry you are mad that the IS-F got killed by not only the M3 but by the 350z also. lol

only m3 and IS-F are the luxury performance car. don't know why S2000 and Nismo 350Z are there too.

1. M3
2. 350z Nismo
3. Lexus IS-f
4. S2000

The lexus and the S2000 where about 30 car lengths behind the BMW & 350z. The M3 would have wiped out the cars had it started in front vs being behind the alot slower IS-F

BMW awesome. I drove the M3 and that car is incredible.

This is gonna be a long blog.

The result will be no different.

M3 sedan with MDCT

Fair competition would be M3 sedan with new automatic gearbox (which is far superior to the silly and oddly geared 8AT from the Lexus).

And it would smoke the IS-F because the Lexus had rubbish gears and no LSD

This video has the worst drivers I ever seen. They kept going all in grass, knowing that the grass slows you down. It seems like these were beginner drivers.

NOT A FAIR COMPARSION!!! SEEMS LIKE GRANMA WAS RACING THOSE CARS!!

So they put Batman in the M3, and then put Hillary Clinton inside the Lexus, Obama inside the Nissan, and John MCcain inside the Honda, HOW FAIR IS THAT!

The honda seem like it was having a some kinda of heart attack when trying to tackle them curves as if it was scared

im not gonna defend the results, but the IS-F driver seemed to not know how to work the paddle shifters

No one knows how to work them because the damn transmission is a POS automatic.....that is not properly engineered!

then in those same articles you would have read that the IS-F is a good intro into the performance sedan market, but not up to M3. IS-F is a good start for Lexus, but you will see in every comparison to the M3 that it will be a little slower and not handle as well.

Oh, come on, is that the best you can do? I want MORE excuses!

I'm no fan of the IS-F but I honestly thought it would keep up with the M3 on a track cuz Edmunds I believe said "it is a car more for the track than the street". They also said the suspenssion is very stiff.

Glad to see th M3 beat them all :)

The BMW M3 really handed those other cars a beating :-/

Just like how the GT-R handed the M3 a beating...and the Porsche 911 turbo. ;-)

Why can't you stick to the topic instead of bringing something else into it?

Is it because the Nissan lost in this one? Jeeze big deal.

BMW Fanboy + Nissan Fanboy = 14 hours of useless online bickering.

Facts of the race:

S2000 was in the best position
ISF should have been in the 2nd best if he had better acceleration and positioned himself for the first turn.
M3 had the worst position(last and far left of first turn).

M3 was last after first turn due to bad position and ended first.

Bottom line, M3 was better in THIS race.

"Just like how the GT-R handed the M3 a beating"

And? What is the point of that? If you're going to compare the GT-R to the M3, you may as well compare it to the IS-F also, which would be embarrassing. At least the M3 can hold its own, especially when it gets M-DCT, making it a more fair comparison to the beastly (DSG-equipped) Nissan.

Seeing the IS-F RPMs drop so heavily between gear shifts makes me think that the car was not configured to it's "Sport" Mode, seems like the tranny was being lazy on gear shifts as if it were in the default Auto Mode...can anyone clarify because I don't understand Japanese. Maybe they explained it in the beginning of the video.

..wish I were in any one of those cars during that race, that would've been fun...

Found out there is going to be an M3 special on the Speed Channel on the 26th. We will see how it performs (brilliantly) with REAL professionals behind the wheel.

http://bmwmnews.blogspot.com/

These "Specials" are nothing more than paid for ad time. I have seen them do a "special" with the Chevy SSR with Kendall and some other clown talking about how great the car/truck handled.

Speedvision is dead. NASCARvision is all we have left...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310533/epcast

In case you thought I was kidding about the SSR episode.

I can't help but think you people here are clueless. The 350z is 306hp compared to the M3's 415 and a 1000 more in the Lexus. The Z would win hands down if it had those comparable numbers. Look at the GT_R, beat 997tt with less HP and more Weight, and if Nissan can beat Porsche, it can pretty much eat the BMW.

Well of COURSE it would.

But that works both ways! If the M3 and IS-F were as light as the Z and were built to be sports cars, they would KILL it. It wouldn't even be a contest.

Enough "if's," though. This is what happened, like it or not.

IS-F driver was losing tenth`s of seconds revving to cut without shifting to next gear , M3 driver was better and that`s why it win with that big gap, Z and S2000 don`t have chance becouse of much less power

If the IS-F was in sport mode then maybe it would be as fast as the M3. And the Z is a very good car and on the same level as the M3. So people stop comparing the M3 with the GTR because the GTR is on a totaly diverent level.

I am the biggest M3 fan, and I appreciate the Z was on the front row but boy am I impressed by how it held off the M3! I've seen much easier won battles by Best Motoring. Here in Australia there is a BIG price diff between a Z and an M3. Probably $90k AUD difference - but that is for a base Z, not a Nismo one which isn't sold here.

IS-F and S2000s performance was to be expected. I'm not engineer, but that 8 speed auto in the Lexus might have too many ratios? I saw the upshifts and it went from the 7k redline to like.. 6200rpm. I'm thinking, yes it's in the sweet spot on the upshift, but there's so much shifting going on.. maybe drop a ratio or 2??

timmy - the M3 had 1 lap to close about a 3 second gap and then pass it. Unfortunately, it was stuck behind the Lexus IS-F. 5 laps is not alot of time to pass 3 cars on a staggered start. especially, when the 350z had a huge lead.

I'm wonder what the S2000 was doing with the top down...

they actually should put rs4 and C63amg there instead the other two. they are seriously not in the same category.

i'm pretty sure they always grid the cars according to their power to weight ratio.

unless they recently changed it to qualifying laps.

Looks it came down to the driver, The iSF driver had a manageable lead over the M3, but he could not keep it, so clearly nothing can be conjectured out of this test. I want to see the cars being driven by the same driver and how much time it takes each car to finish a lap, that will give a better indication.

The M3 was the expected winner from the start. Though I don't know if it's just me or if the driver of the IS-F was in fact having troubles with the cars manumatic.

I remember my 1st time using a manumatic I would treat it like a real manual easing up on the gas while shifting as opposed to keeping the gas on the floor while flicking through the gears. The driver of the IS-F seems to do the same.

Keiichi Tsuchiya is the Sh*T and I can't remember seeing him lose in one of these comparos. The driver skill typically varies greatly.

I have to agree with comments about the IS-F driver not working the paddles with great efficiency. There isn't really much to it, I have driven a couple and they are easy to use.

I have to say I was most impressed with the 350Z. I don't know what the nismo package contains, but it really hung in there with not only the M3, but the M3 with the Drift King at the wheel.

Would I buy a car based on one of these track comparos, no. Would a typical 14 year old on Autospies? Possibly.

Would I buy a Manumatic? No, DCT, Possibly...

Three comments:

1. That 350 NIZMO blew me away. That thing is FAST!!1 I had no idea...Congrats to Nissan for staying ahead of the M3 for 4.5 laps!

2. The Lexus shifts like shit. This is not the first i've heard of this either. People can say that the driver didn't know how to use the paddle shifters but keep in mind he is an actual DRIVER. You boys couldn't hanldle it any better i'm sure.

3. I love the M3, it sounded GORGEOUS.

this Video favoued BMW, 350Z driver clearly give up on the last lap...
like someone said, if Nissan can beat porsche, why can't they beat M with 350Z. If BMW want look good stay away from nissan and infiniti. compare with lexus and Benz

The Z has 100 LESS hp than the M3, the GT-R has 60 HP more than an M3. Get what am tryin to say? The M3 crawled passed the Z, while the GT-R just eats the Porsche 997TT, nevermind the m3. M3 isn't a bad car, but it just isn't good enough...

Wow! It must the better car then!

I'm a big fan of voting for the underdog(IS-F), but goodness...that shifting was killing me inside. That car has got to get a manual transmission.

well most of us forgot, that 350Z is 6-7 year old car and S2000 is even older car

i still like the way the S2000 looks, it was ahead of its time

as far as the race goes it means nothing...an modded nissan? an honda, lol which should of been modded LMAO... silly racers

Sorry to say it, but if the IS-F hadn't held up the M3 for 2 laps, it would have even been faster. The IS-F had to let off sooner and get back into the throttle later.

I really don't get it, why race with automatic transmission when you have the race peddals???
The ISF driver is really not able to handle its power he's afraid of losing control of the car. This race is just for fun drivers anyhow, it really proves nothing.

IS-F got WORKED!!!!!

M3 still the champ.