The upcoming BMW 1 Series M Coupe (I wonder if they'll use the old M1 moniker or 1M so that we won't get confused with the M1 supercar from the early 80s) will be on duty as the Official Safety Car for the 2011 Motorcycle Road Racing World Championship or MotoGP in short. The specially built 1 Series M Coupe Safety Car will feature in all the races, when needed and is part of the BMW sponsored official cars and motorcycles for the 2011 MotoGP season.

The other official cars include two reserve Safety Cars - an X6M and an M3, a 535i Touring Medical Car, an X5 M for the Safety Officer and an ActiveHybrid X6 for the stewards. The official motorcycles are two Safety Bikes, the BMW S 1000 RR and a HP2 Sport. So it seems BMW will participate in this year's MotoGP, as safety equipment. Now back to the details of the real mouthful to pronounce BMW 1 Series M Coupe.

It will be lighter than the road going version even with a roll cage and track safety equipment bolted to it. This is because the M Division replaces a lot of parts with carbon fiber. The bonnet vents are large carbon bits, the windows are mostly polycarbonate, the rear seats (obviously) deleted and replaced with that earlier mentioned roll cage and a titanium exhaust system rounds it all up (which is manufactured by famed motorcycle exhaust builder Akrapovic, which also makes them for cars these days).

The bodykit gets tweaked too. A front splitter and an adjustable GT wing is added to the car. This adds to aerodynamic grip as it has been optimized by the M Division. Mechanical grip is also improved with the 19inch wheels running 255/35 tires at the front and 285/30 at the rear.

One this which I can't seem too interested to report is the fact that the M division has not let loose its magic on the 3.0liter twin turbocharged straight-6 engine. It is basically stock aside from that titanium exhaust system. This means that it will only have 340hp to guide MotoGP bikes around the tracks.

Is that enough? Maybe not but if any of you want to see a very compact looking BMW M car with racing stickers, a large wing (to compensate for its size) and LED lights on the roof head over to a MotoGP race closest to you. For this region, the 2011 Malaysian MotoGP is scheduled for the 23rd of October. By then, there would be a few BMW 1 Series M coupe running around and we may not be so keen on watching it then.