Blitzkrrieg

BMW’s brand new S 1000 RR with an M-badge takes on the Buddh International Circuit, and what it is like to be strapped to the tank!

- Dipayan Dutta

Let’s face it, expecting the 2020 BMW S 1000 RR to be anything less than a scalpel mounted to a ballistic missile is plain stupid. Ze Germans’ rarely back away from a fight, and usually punch to knock out. Sure, a decade ago, the world was surprised when BMW launched the original S 1000 RR -- it’s first-ever litre-class faired bike -- in 2009 and it was eons ahead of the rest of the superbikes of its time. Almost a decade later, the “all-new” S 1000 RR was just going to be better, it’s as simple as that. Even with all of this on my mind, nothing, and I repeat, nothing could prepare me for the sheer brutality of the inline-4 missile that is the S 1000 RR. Turning the hairpin ahead onto the main straight at the Buddh International Circuit, throat dry with trepidation, your ham-fisted reviewer decided to throw caution to the wind, thwack it and see what was what. Without hesitation, the renewed and replenished S 1000 RR shoots forward like a greyhound on cocaine, the readout on the TFT display are a blur as it appears to suck the horizon to you through those tactically mounted air-dams in the nose. The Shift Cam, variable valves kick in at 9,000 rpm -- like your grandmother with cake -- with another serving of power you are not entirely sure you need or want. The nose goes up, peek at the speedo and its crossing 114kmph as the tacho-needle shoots for the 14,500 rpm redline with ferocity, shift up clutchlessly on the bi-direction quick shifter. Another full-size serving of power. From there on it’s mostly a blur of tarmac, sky, tarmac, sky, tarmac, sky. The last time S 1000 RR erupts to the sky the speedo shows numbers that are far north of the 200km mark. Its 290+ on the TFT as the breaking marker flies past. You sit up and the windblast gives you a millisecond to adjust to exactly how fast you are going, aaand, brake ! The response is sharp, but it’s engaging, there’s probably a ton of electronics keeping everythi