The best racing games featuring cars from BMW M.

Racing day and night.

If you love fast races, enjoy duels and revel in wild tuning options, you’ll definitely have fun with Need for Speed Heat. Eleven BMW M cars can be driven in the 24th edition of this now legendary series, which is an open-world racing game. It’s set in Palm City, a fictional and highly stylised version of Miami, Florida, where virtual money can be earned by competing in official racing events during the day and less legal street races at night. But be careful: the police won’t tolerate any racing on the city's streets, whatever the time of day.

Powerful graphics and multiplayer motorsport.

Gran Turismo Sport is a racing simulation created exclusively for the PlayStation 4 by Japanese game development studio Polyphony Digital. It’s the seventh instalment of the popular Gran Turismo series, but dispenses with the huge repertoire of cars that predecessor Gran Turismo 6 was known for. However, you should still find what you’re looking for among the list of over 330 production cars, racing cars and concept cars. The game doesn’t offer a classic career mode, with its developers instead putting the focus on achieving adrenaline-loaded online multiplayer races. Of particular note are the eight licensed BMW M automobiles that can be driven on Gran Turismo Sport’s remarkably real racetracks. The level of detail seen on the tracks and vehicles, as well as the game’s realistic driving physics, were praised by reviewers when it was released.

Unrivalled choice.

Like Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport 7 – or Forza 7 for short – offers plenty of realism, as well as over 700 vehicles and 32 finely-detailed racetracks, making it one of the flagships of its genre. For our editors, it's especially gratifying that Forza 7 lets you drive over 20 BMW M cars, from the legendary BMW M1 to the modern classic BMW M4 GTS. In career mode, you have to face six major championships from 15 events. An online multiplayer is also available, but it doesn't offer quite as many options as something like Gran Turismo Sport, for example.

Drive like a pro.

Focusing entirely on realism, iRacing isn’t a game for casual players. To achieve almost pinpoint accuracy, its developers laser-scanned racetracks in order to recreate every corner and undulation. They also took telemetry data from real world motorsport and transplanted it into iRacing’s gameplay. As a result, the game stands in a league of its own when it comes to driving physics and track detail, even if the graphics can't quite keep up with the likes of Gran Turismo Sport or Forza 7. So much so, in fact, that even BMW factory drivers use iRacing as a training aid.

iRacing’s events all take place online against real players and are divided into different categories according to class, speed, fairness and region. During the Covid-19 pandemic, there will even be official competitions featuring actual professional drivers. In the IMSA Sebring SuperSaturday race, Bruno Spengler, Nick Catsburg and Jesse Krohn celebrated a triple victory in the virtual MOTUL BMW M8 GTE.

The race simulator in your pocket.

Like your racing games with real world racetracks and licensed cars to drive on them? Then Real Racing 3 from Australian game developer Firemonkeys Studios might be the one for you. It only features genuine racetracks – 19 in total – and over 250 real vehicles, of which 18 bear the BMW M logo. In addition to the classic racing series, there is also a NASCAR series and even Formula E to compete in via your smartphone screen.