Photo of the day: BMW M6 GTLM makes its track debut

BMW’s fearsome replacement for the old Z4 GT3 was unveiled at the Frankfurt motor show in September to the sound of trembling knees and cries of ‘Is that a wing or detachable snow plough?’

Luckily it was the former, and at last we’ve been allowed to see what it looks like on an actual track. Disappointment is minimal.

Pictured here in Sebring, the new M6 GTLM (nearly identical to the GT3, apparently) will make its first public appearance over the next two days at the Daytona International Speedway in a test event for next year’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

BMW says it expects to enter two LMs for the 2016 season, with last year’s champion Kuno Wittmer set to join current drivers Bill Auberlen, Dirk Wener and John Edwards for IMSA’s three endurance classics of Sebring, Daytona and Petit Le Mans.

If the LM really is a carbon copy of the GT3, then it will have a 4.4-litre M TwinPower V8 turbo and about 577bhp at its disposal when the lights go out at the first race in Florida in January.

And coming in at a featherweight 1300kg, BMW’s racer has a power-to-weight-ratio roughly equal to a McLaren 570S. A car which, as we learned last month, is no slouch.

Our only complaint? It doesn’t need the black livery: it was menacing enough already...