[swamp2]

^ Your graphs are incorrect or at least minimally a misrepresentation. Heck you don't even have precise axis labels or units on them...ugh.

A much more informative way to look at a comparison of the cars is simply position vs. time, velocity vs. time or acceleration vs. time. What graphs vs. rpm can fail to fully represent is that except for the very brief pull to the shift point in 1st gear the M3 spends the vast majority of its times at a much higher rpm than the 1M, as such is is making more power for more of the time and hence accelerating more. A really rough range on WOT runs where the 1M spends its time is 5-7k rpm. The M3 is typically at 7-8k. I.e. it is operating where the 1M can not even reach from an rpm perspective! This emphasizes the importance of redline and hp over torque. The higher torque only really provides a performance advantage when you lug the M3 and use the wrong gear. For some particular speed contests such as low speed in high gear the 1M will win. Some describe this as a better daily driver type of characteristic whereas I perfer a better lazy driver.

Here you can look at the accelerative force vs. speed (1st two graphs), noting that at each shift you simply drop down one curve right to the next. For instance in 2nd gear the M3 is almost always producing more than 2000 lbs of accelerative force whereas the 1M typically producing less than 1750 lbs (again during WOT runs). The M3s green curve for 2nd gear does not even see the part of the curve below or to the left of the peak when doing a WOT run! These curves take into account power, torque, gearing, a plethora of losses, weight, aero effects, tire slip, you name it. It is a very rich physics based simulation. Do note that on these force curves I could not force my software to use the same scale so that can be a bit misleading (4000 peak vs. 3500 peak).

The radically downward sloping curves in the upper rpm ranges is that typical "running out of steam" feeling you get in a lower redline car with a much lower rpm torqe peak and narrow torque curve width.

When it comes to who is ahead or who is going faster that should be painfully obvious from the cars power to weight ratios. The next set of graphs only make it obvious. Not really much of a contest here. The M3 is ahead, always ahead and ahead from a distance or speed perspective. The only possible exception to this would be that somewhere in middle of the short 4 or so seconds to 60 mph the 1M might get just a few feet ahead of the M3 but by 4 seconds the M3 will have gained almost a wheelbase on the 1M.

Just for reference my 0-60 and 1/4 mi. times predicted for the 1M using this software were 4.6s and 13.1s respectively. The car might be underrated a bit by BMW like the 335i and in which case it wil fare a bit better but the trends won't be reversed. Not much tweaking of input parameters to the software was needed here nor was a super precise dyno curve required. Having those again would nudge curves very slightly here or there but no major change would result. Also note I have used the M-DCT M3 for comparison not the 6MT. You can see that by the very short shift times compared to the MT.