DTM's new safety car is a BMW M4 GTS

You’ll know by now that we love a safety car here at TG. And this latest entrant into the world of performance pace cars only increases our hankerings to be the marshall in charge of one.

Meet the new DTM safety car, a BMW M4 GTS. The GTS is the BMW M4’s fightier, more hardcore brother, a rival to the Porsche 911 GT3 RS but from a more mainstream brand.

It takes the standard M4’s twin-turbo straight-six engine and boosts it right up to 493bhp – exactly the same as that Porsche – while stripping out lots of weight, cranking up the noise with an Akrapovic exhaust, and toughening up the suspension and brakes. The result is a car with a 7min28sec Nürburgring lap time, a 190mph top speed and a 3.8-second 0-62mph time.

Immensely strong stats. Which are precisely what it needs to be able to lead a bunch of pumped-up DTM racecars around a track without turning itself into a slow-moving road block. DTM cars are, don’t forget, 500bhp V8-powered nutcases.

The list of safety equipment for this specific car is also strong. Ticking the M4 GTS’s ‘Clubsport’ option was a no-brainer, as this brings the Acid Orange roll cage (matches the wheels, too), six-point harness seatbelts and a fire extinguisher. That’s very health and safety.

You will also note the smattering of flashy LED lights and Safety Car stickers too, so there’ll be no excuses for drivers not recognising what’s in front of them. Given the rear wing of the M4 GTS isn’t a whole heap smaller than BMW’s M4 DTM car, perhaps it’s wise…

If you like what you see, then the man you need to be jealous of is one Jürgen Kastenholz, the official DTM safety car driver since 2010. He’s driven a standard M4 in his role for the last two years, and seems excited by the prospect of an upgrade.

“The new BMW M4 GTS will be even better,” he says, “so I will have complete trust in the car from the word go. This is absolutely essential to be able to lead a pack of 24 DTM racing cars quickly around the circuit during the caution periods.”

Click here to see how the M4 GTS compares to motorsport’s current crop of safety cars