M1 is faster off the line but bogs down easily after 6000. If your in first gear and driving at 4-5k rpm, and then step on it it'll rip your freaking head off.

 

As others have said:

M1 will give the best acceleration from a dig. With a steptronic, the car will transmission not let you harm the engine or transmission. If you accelerate aggressively and keep pressing on the car will upshift at redline. Additionally, it will not let you downshift if to do so would cause an over-rev.

With the steptronic, it is 100% fire and forget. You can mash the pedal all you like and you will not harm the car, other than increased wear from aggressive driving - but provided the car is fully warmed up, the car is built to handle anything you can throw at it. These are not fragile cars.

 

I agree. Although I frequently use manual modes for the best control and feel to the car. Manual mode without the sport button pressed gives M2 starts which is plenty good for city traffic. When I want to really have fun, I push the sport button or just drop it to M1 for faster take-offs.

To the OP, in manual mode, just like a manual transmission, shift RPM is your choice. A guide is to shift (up or down) at or near the RPMs that the auto mode would shift. You'll know when it just sounds right. Although standard D mode seems to shift too low an RPM for me and DS mode too high.

It also depends on the level of acceleration you want or need. Around town, use light throttle and shift @ 2500 RPMS, when having fun, use more throttle and shift at 4000 RPMs. For max acceleration, accelerate hard and shift at 6K RPMs.

On track, for the slowest corners, I used the paddles to downshift to 3rd or 2nd, round the corner, and ease my foot to the floor while exiting the corner, and then allowing it to shift itself near redline. On VIR's back straight, I'd redline 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and then end the straight in 5th gear at 135 MPH. I did that lap after lap, and session after session for the whole weekend with the car seeming to enjoy every minute of that as much as I did. See for that. Note I didn't push hard the first few laps. The best part starts around 6:00 when I pass a Porsche and hit the front straight. Around 8:00 is when I'm back around to the back straight and you can see me do as described above.

 

Around town D is plenty for me...DS when i want to be a little more aggresive and M2 and M3 when playing, but in SoCal traffic there isn't much room to be all that aggressvie.

 

I agree with Maco.

 

Very interesting on your vids... I watched all. Lots of porsches in the track.

 

It was a PCA club event. But BMW represented well.

 

i shift at 3 k revs for regular driving....hard to use it in traffic, but fun when racing or w.e

 

the car also adjust to how you drive if you drive more agressive than it will respond more agressive if you drive like a gramma then it will respond like one

 

Even in M mode the car will not let you over rev or stall so no real damage can be done. Do not run for a long distance in one gear at high revs as you are overworking the engine/gearbox.

For speed and max power you need to look up the bhp and torque curves for your car. They will both have a peak figure. Therefore you should change gear just after that. Holding onto the red line feels great but often the torque is decreasing by then. Therefore changing gear and accessing torque again is acually quicker.