Thread: Audi R8

Super cars. They're the very pinnacle of road car engineering, engaging exotie technologies and lessons learnt from racing to make for mind-bogglingly fast and impossibly sexy cars for wealthy playboys to get up and into supermodels' skirts. A super car, any bonafide super car, never fails to make one go weak in the knees, if not from the sheer sex appeal of its exotic shape, then by the effort taken to get in and drive one. For all the intensely visceral driving experience on offer, a super car, in a nutshell, is a bitch to drive.

This is a fact these cars are claustrophobic, cramped and require the dexterity of a gymnast to get into. Once you're in, the driving position is horribly Italian long arms and short legs with added demands for muscles of a body builder to wrestle the steering, gear shift and clutch. And for all the big bucks they command, an awful lot make do without air-conditioning, stereo (ostensibly to save weight) and power assist (on both the steering and brakes). Imagine parking one, partieularlywith the view out front half filled with a bulging bonnet and distended wings and the rear-view completely obscured by the engine. An engine that on full chat would almost make you cry with the sheer aural thrill of a V8 (or, even better, a VI2) with the accompanying drone on motorways and annoying vibrations through the base of the seat only adding to the tears.

Get it right and a super car would deliver one of the finest experiences you could ever have with your clothes on. A perfectly executed heel and toe shift, exiting a corner in third with just a hint of corrective lock - the narratives would run into 50,000 evocative words and leave you buzzing for the rest of the night. Get it wrong and you'd be bit by the legendary viciousness of mid-engined super cars and be left to pratice your moves on the young nurse sponging you off.

Get it wrong? I've been trying to do that for the past hour, not on purpose mind you, but short of driving straight into the wall the R8 just papers over my mistakes and keeps pace with the lead R8 we're lapping behind. "Brake here," says ex-European rally champion Jochi Kleint and the instructor for our group. "This cone is your entry marker, turn in late, get on the power now, and hit this cone on the exit. Ja, very good sir," comes his encouraging drawl over the radio. The pace is hot, I've yet to learn the flow of the track and, well, there are an awful lot of horses click¬ing their hooves behind my ear.

So obviously I miss some of the braking markers, go into some corners too hot and on one particularly quick left hander get on the power too early, run over the exit kerbs and hit some dirt. I wonder if there are any hot tie nurses at the track and try to count the number of zeroes in a crore before the rear comes round to smack me in the face. But no, a slight tail waggle, keep the throttle welded to the floorboard and the R8 rockets like a heat-seeking missile towards the next corner marker. "Next time, not so much on the kerbs,ja." crackles Jochi in calm reassuring tones.

I don't know what blows my mind the sheer depth of the R8's abilities or Jochi's wheelsmanship. Not by a long shot am I driving slowly but Jochi, in the car up ahead, is not only adjusting his speed in relation to mine, he's watching what I'm doing in his mirrors and driving one-handed, the other on the transmit button of his radio. I give it a shot but conclude it's easier to focus on the depth of the R8's talents.



The R8 then. Now, as you'll be familiar, Audi doesn't have much of a history of super cars. Its reputation is built on the back of safe, solid and now increasingly sporty and aggressive luxury saloons. Technical innovation too - back in the 80s Audi demolished every other rally car with Quattro four-wheel drive, itwas one of the first to use light-weight aluminium space frame chassis and today it has redefined what diesels can do with the Le Mans winning RIO TDI prototypes. It even has quite a history of utterly mad estates and saloons with the RS badge tacked to their flanks but super cars aren't something Audi has done before. And you just don't get it right the first time round. Or maybe you do.

Idling in the pitlane of EuroSpeedway Lausitz on the outskirts of Dresden in Germany, the IS-odd R8's lined up for the Audi driving experience program takes your breath away; it still manages to draw vocal and effusive oohs and aahs, just like it did at the Paris Motor Show launch two years back. I particularly love the one in black, with the carbon-fibre 'side blades' (optional) and the engine bay under the Ferrari-ish glass cover again lined with optional carbon-fibre. All very Vorsprung Durch Technikish and sets off beautifully against the LED headlamps there are 210 LEDs including some in the gine bay) and trademark Audi goatee grille. Equally impressive are the interiors typically Audi in that it's classy and unmensely well built but with added dashes f style and pizzazz to go with the price tag. e seats are beautiful, bolstered beautifully d hugely comfortable; it's claimed that a set golf clubs will fit behind the seats (though '5 probably a set of tailor-made R8 clubs) d the flat-bottomed steering wheel just outs super car. A super car that's meant to driven, driven fast.

Our first session gets us familiarised with e car and the layout of the Lausitzring (as it as formerly known). This is Europe's new¬t track located in an abandoned opencast coal mining pit and sprawling over a massive 370 hectares. It's the only banked oval speed¬way on the mainland, famous for US-based CART series' first ever European excursion and the mighty crash that saw ex-Formula 1 driver Alex Zanardi lose both his legs. He later on moving\)' .said, "I didn't lose two legs but won a life," after which he made a miraculous recovery to return to a CART single-seater two years later at the Lausitzring to finish the 13 laps remaining in 'his' race. Moving stuff.

Our loop uses two of the three sections of the banked oval connected by a tight infield section delivering ample opportunity to sample the R8's agility, grip and of course ferocious power down the main straight. Super cars today are getting all techy and F1-ish what with launch control and fancy electronics and the R8 is no exception, the R-Tronic automatic 'box getting some super-complicated algorithms. I'm in the manual though and with Quattro four wheel drive giving it incredible grip you just don't miss launch control.

First, give it revs, side-step the clutch and the car just launches off the line; the immense grip is truly shattering. To SOkmph the R8 takes just 1.7 seconds, 100 comes in 4.6 seconds, 200 in 14.9 seconds and top speed is a breath¬taking 301kmph. The 4.2-litre V8 nestling behind my head is the same unit from the RS4 sporting direct petrol injection and dry sump lubrication (to handle the addi¬tional cornering g's of the super car) and churns out a walloping 420PS of power. And unlike big capacity V8s, this one loves to be revved hard to her 8200rpm redline, which is just as well since the R8 is strangely quiet for a super car and only when revved hard does she deliver those aural thrills without which a super car is just not super enough.