BMW M5 Competition Smokes Aston Martin Vantage In Drag Race

BMW's M5 Competition is arguably the quickest sedan money can buy today. Well, sorry about that Mercedes-AMG E 63 S – you are also super quick, but that 0.1-second advantage of the Bimmer in the quarter-mile drag makes all the difference. Of course, that doesn't mean the Merc is slow by any means, but that's a topic for another discussion.

We've seen the M5 and the M5 Competition race all kinds of vehicles in different drag races. Now it's time for the new Aston Martin Vantage V8 to try its luck and, even on paper, the two cars are quite different. Let's start with the obvious – on the right is a comfortable Bavarian four-door sedan, while on the left we have Aston's latest and greatest grand tourer.

The differences are even bigger when we compare the performance stats of the two cars. Both have V8 engines under the hood, but that's nearly everything they have in common – the M5 Competition's 4.4-liter engine generates 617 horsepower (460 kilowatts), while the 4.0-liter twin-turbo of the Vantage churns out "just" 503 hp (375 kW). In fact, in this drag race, the BMW is once again fighting a Mercedes-sourced V8, the same as the one used in the E 63, but in a different power tune.

Which one wins? It's obvious, isn't it? The M5 Competition with its more powerful V8 engine and an AWD system compared to the Aston's RWD layout is clearly the quicker off the line between the two contenders today. We've seen even better quarter-mile runs from the M5 Competition so the gap between the two should be a bit larger.