Journeys with Audi: R8 & RS e-tron GT

Fifteen years ago, I said corners are overrated. With the benefit of hindsight, I can confirm that corners aren’t overrated. But you’ve got to put that statement into the perspective of the times. 15 years ago, we didn’t get to test sports cars in India. At the most we’d get like half an hour with a fast car, that too heavily supervised. And then came Audi, with their hero car. The R8 was making waves all over the world, with its unique combination of performance and daily usability, from what was, don’t forget, a proper mid-engined sports/supercar (we will address that debate in a bit). This was proper exotica. Iron Man drove one. And by the trend of the times, that meant we would get to look at it, and be happy. Except, when we asked Audi if we could drive it, they said — yes! — with only two caveats. A mileage cap of 100km along with a firm diktat to go nowhere close to a pothole or speed breakers (with good reason, we will come to that too in a bit). And so, we found a road without any speed breakers or potholes, and I dished out a lame excuse for not having any corners. R8 and ’Busa on India’s fastest road is one of those stories during my stint as editor of Overdrive magazine that I am most proud of. It was a story that had never been done. A supercar, flat out on what was then India’s fastest road, from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer with a Hayabusa chasing it down. It became an instant sensation. Put the TV show we’d launched a year ago on the map.

And the R8 you see here is that very same car. It now has a Telangana number, and rocks this purple wrap, but this is that very first R8 to come to India. The car that starred on the cover story of the 11th anniversary issue of Overdrive. And — mother of all coincidences — I've been reunited with it for the 11th anniversary issue of evo India. This is where my journey with Audi began. Unlike the incumbents, Audi took it upon themselves to raise the driving standard of Indian journalists. They took us to racetracks all over the world to drive the R8 and their other RS cars, a particular highlight being the B3 RS4 Avant. They kickstarted sports car driving experiences at race tracks in India. Year after year, they took us to the Arctic Circle to drift Audis on ice — which was directly responsible for me going rallying. Not the 911, not any AMG, and forget Ferrari or Lamborghini — Audi were singularly responsible for making sports cars popular in India. And the halo effect of the R8 swiftly took Audi to the very top of the luxury car market. Much has changed over 15 years, not the least being manual gearboxes all but vanishing from the sports car world. You now pay crazy money for a manual sports car, provided you are lucky enough to get an allocation. I don’t even remember the last time I drove a manual sports car! And that’s what makes India’s first R8 even more special — this is the V8 mated to the 6-speed manual that goes click-clack as metal grazes metal through the evocative gated shift. It’s a tactile, sensory, emotional, even physical overload. You need to be deliberate with the shifts; punch it into the gate. Your left leg is made fully aware of the performance clutch. There’s plenty of grunt but it makes such pornographic noises at the top that you’re forever chasing after the money shot. 15 years ago I said this 4.2-litre FSI V8 was, “One of the greatest engines to ever roam this planet.” 15 years later I stand by that claim — unlike the one about corners. For its time, this was one of the highest revving engines in the world. It doesn’t scream or howl — this is no Lamborghini — instead the V8 growls a deep, bassy bellow that broadcasts its muscle, decibel and anger as the gorgeous tacho swings with surprising haste across the dial — a flying needle stirring the loins like no digital tacho ever can. Dry-sumped as all motorsport engines are, kitted with the new-fangled direct-injection and untroubled by turbos of any sort, the 4.2-litre V8 employed 4.2 seconds to get to 100kmph, the 414bhp and 430Nm going on to push a max speed of 299kmph. And, unlike sports cars of that era, “The R8 is a supercar that does not want to kill you.” That was a quote from my 15-year-old story where I also added, “No drama, no shenanigans, just cool, clinical efficiency.” Which is not exactly true. The R8, particularly in the V8-manual spec, makes your nerve endings sizzle and pop. And even today it feels fast; in fact, faster than that fateful day when we monstered past sand dunes and sent an A6 ahead to warn us in advance about any speedbreakers.

Flicking through the old Overdrive magazine, I’m reminded that of the two R8s that had come to India — the sister one to what we are driving today went over a speed breaker, killed its water pump, and had to be shipped to New Zealand. I don’t remember even asking why New Zealand, we were just so blown away that Audi was letting us drive the R8! We even found one corner on the road we were shooting on and went up and down it multiple times, claiming, “Audi’s Quattro grips like Spiderman climbing up the empire state building.” A horrible cliché that we got murdered for in the YouTube comments. With time to slow-cook our story for the magazine I wrote, “Quattro grips tarmac like a lizard running upside down on a ceiling.” Not sure if that’s any better but handling is one area where the needle has moved. Through the few corners we have on the Movie Towers Road outside Hyderabad — Dubai feels very much in order — the R8 feels on the limit where the e-tron GT hasn’t even brushed its teeth. And the noise makes you feel you’re doing twice the speed. The long-expired warranty period means sports cars of this vintage nearly always are stuffed with masala parts, the least of which are loud pipes. Mate that to the purity of a naturally aspirated motor and it makes for particularly bothersome accidents in one’s pants every time the throttle is kicked though the firewall. I can’t imagine wanting or needing any more power. Except, Audi had an answer before questions were even asked of it.

By the time the R8 was launched in India, Audi already had the V10 engine, and by the time evo India was launched, the V10 Plus had landed on our shores. In an alternate universe though, I would have been selling Audi sports cars instead of editing this magazine. It was November of 2012. I had just quit my first and only corporate job, eight months as the head of press and marketing at Porsche India, which prompted the then head of Audi India to take me out to lunch and offer me the position as head of the new sports and premium car division he was setting up. What Michael couldn’t have known was the packers and movers were in my flat in Mumbai, sending everything including my precious Overdrive bound volumes back to Pune. I couldn’t put my wife through another move and that very evening I returned my black Audi A4 company car, drove back to Pune, and embarked on a journey that, six months later, would find me at the BIC with another R8, this time the V10, putting together the cover story of the launch issue of evo India. 300kmph! the cover screamed. And it was the R8 V10 Plus in which, for the very first and very last time, I clocked those speeds in India. The V8 R8 was always open to interpretation. Was it a super car or a sports car? With the V10 there was no debate. The 5.2-litre V10 put out 562bhp shrieking, howling horses — after all, Audi were making the same engine for Lamborghini to install in the back of the Gallardo, and later the Huracan. Still naturally aspirated. A higher rev limit, now 8700rpm. 3.1 seconds to 100kmph. And 331kmph top speed. The engine was so strong that the last of the line Performance models put out 611bhp, and tuners ramped it up to 1000bhp. Yes, you read that right. 1000bhp. The R8 V10 with that rear bumper delete, so beloved amongst the tuner community, puts out a claimed 1000bhp. And that’s without the engine internals being upgraded, although it has two massive turbos breathing fire into it. It’s only the twin-clutch automatic transmission that has been upgraded to Stage 5 spec and the target is to be India’s fastest car over the quarter mile in the year ending drag races. As you can well imagine, the performance is off the charts. Until around 4500rpm this feels like a regular R8 V10 — a shrieking howl and turn of pace. Then the turbos spool up and all hell breaks loose. Even with Quattro all four tyres light up. The torque rips up the tarmac. Your brain has left the chat. And self-preservation kicks in hauling your right foot off the accelerator. Which is her cue to spit 4-metre-long flames. The V10 was tough as nails, making the R8 the mainstay of drag races and assorted sports car meets. And then two years ago a new EV class was introduced at the drag races and, in a very scientific effort to see just how fast EVs are, I took the RS e-tron GT to the BIC races. I am no drag race specialist. My reaction times are rubbish. And yet I clocked the second fastest time of the entire event, 0.076 seconds slower than a massively tuned 48. Had I fractionally quicker reactions, the RS e-tron GT would have won the event overall — and that just tells you about the pace of progress. Where the R8 demanded you put in effort, the e-tron GT delivers astonishing performance without breaking into a sweat. And without worry of killing the clutch or blowing the internals after repeated launches.

Repeatable, tarmac ripping performance. You can’t call the RS e-tron GT a replacement to the R8. I mean, just look at it. It’s no two-door supercar. Instead, it reimagines the performance car sitting at the top of the Audi portfolio as a GT car. Four doors, space for the kids, a proper boot to put their toys in. But it carries forward that halo car DNA. It is still low-slung and angry. And it will still make your passengers and occasionally, you, scream. Fast? The RS e-tron GT is an intercontinental missile. Absolutely savage. EVs are supposed to be efficient and quiet. Polite and demure. Not this one. This is a greyhound in a world full of dachshunds. Allow me to tell you the numbers. 3.3 seconds from 0-100kmph. Faster than the R8 V8. Faster than the R8 V10. Faster than anything that rolled off the line in Germany. 590bhp. 830Nm. That’s boosted to 637bhp for 2.8 seconds when you activate launch control. However, beyond a point, numbers are precisely that — just numbers. You have to feel it to believe it. Stop the car. Select Dynamic mode. Foot on the brake. Flatten the accelerator. Let go of the brake. Zap. The e-motors precisely metre torque to each wheel as they claw at the tarmac and send you flying towards the horizon. 100kmph comes up in the amount of time it takes to say ‘Audi RS e-tron GT’. But you’re not saying that. You can only whimper as the G-forces suck the amniotic fluid to the back of your brain. This is performance that resets your perspective on what is possible in a car. It creates new mental benchmarks. And the fact that you can do this again and again and again. Hit that 3.3-second mark over and over till you suck the battery dry, just demonstrates the repeatability and reliability of  the RS e-tron GT’s performance. Look, it’s no secret that EVs are heavy. The batteries are a critical component that locks in weight and weight is always the enemy of performance. But that isn’t something to stop Audi’s engineers from pushing the envelope with the RS e-tron GT and making it an absolute rocket ship. I know what you’re thinking. Is that all? Is the RS e-tron GT a one-trick pony? No, it isn’t. Audi’s engineers have been smart. Placing the batteries in the floor means a low centre of gravity on an already low-slung machine. This keeps roll flat and reduces cornering momentum. It makes the car feel a lot tighter and a lot nimbler than something this size should. Physics beats physics! The RS e-tron GT also gets air-springs as standard. And this gives it a wide breadth of ability. Dial it up to comfort and the cushions get softer, the dampers slacken up and you’ve got a plush, cosseting ride. You can do a 800km day in this, no trouble at all. It’ll lean into its luxury car credentials, use the effortless performance to cover big distances while keeping you comfortable on the inside. Proper GT car stuff.

Then you dial it up to dynamic. Everything — steering, throttle, suspension — gets bumped up to 11 to tighten up the driving experience. The air suspension has the ability to drop the ride height down at speed to make it all the more focussed. A rear diff lock, standard on the RS e-tron GT — to give you better traction and better grip under braking. And of course, the optional rear-wheel steer that artificially reduces the wheelbase and makes this four-door GT car feel more like a two-door sports car. Agility is delivered in spades. But what is really impressive is how you can exploit that agility. Mash in the throttle as you’re exiting a corner and the e-tron claws into the tarmac, finding unreal amounts of traction, shooting itself towards the next one at ridiculous pace. That ability to be so effective at putting down power, never letting an ounce of it go to waste, makes it such a delightfully violent experience from behind the ’wheel. At the very heart of that clinical ability to put torque to tarmac is Quattro. The AWD tech which debuted on the car it shares its name with has become part of Audi’s very DNA. The R8’s mechanical Quattro system is what made it such a versatile, forgiving, all-weather supercar. And Quattro has been taken to the next level with the RS e-tron GT. Back in the day, the Ur-Quattro put out a stinking 172 horsepower that was split between four wheels using the original Quattro system — a complicated system with three differentials: centre, front and rear. Drive was sent to the centre, where it was split and then sent back to the front and to the rear. The R8 too had a Quattro system but that was a much more advanced system with a viscous coupling between rear and front axle.

The RS e-tron GT takes a radically new approach. With the e-motors, the delivery of torque can be controlled more finely than any Quattro system before this — allowing for incredible adjustability to the conditions. It is a continuously, fully variable process and can be adjusted every few thousandth of a second. AWD systems are all about traction and the ability to control torque so finely, it makes the e-tron GT’s Quattro system the most effective one yet at doing the job it is supposed to do. From behind the ’wheel? You don’t feel it. It is absolutely seamless. The RS e-tron GT has it all. Low slung, with fastback design, typical Audi elements such as the singleframe grille and the innovative Matrix light design. It looks like a fast car and for good reason. The shape has purpose: with a coefficient of drag of 0.24, it slices through the air really efficiently. Active aero cools the brakes and an active spoiler rises at speed to work with the diffuser to increase downforce. The cabin is very driver focussed with minimal screens and distractions, and just a pure unfiltered driving experience. Materials used are fitting for a car of this calibre, and in here, you feel like you’re driving something special. And I really believe that feeling special is the most important bit while driving a car. The RS e-tron GT is a sea change from anything Audi has ever attempted before. And in many ways, that allows you to draw parallels to the R8. Back in 2006, Audi had never made a supercar. We didn’t know what to expect with the R8. It blew minds. It created a cult following. So much so, that production stretched on nearly 20 years all the way until 2024. The RS e-tron GT has, much like the R8, broken new ground for Audi. It is the first-ever electric RS car. And it is a car that is so much more than its 0-100kmph time. It pays attention the sensations delivered to the driver. Audi has not equated sportiness with acceleration and the e-tron is all the better for it. Fun fact. The Audi R8 and RS e-tron GT were built on the same assembly line at the Audi Sport Bollinger Hofe factory near Ingolstadt. Until March 2024, when the last few R8s were built, the two cars were being built by the same people, side by side. It is a dedicated low volume production facility that was created solely for the second-generation R8, and today it remains the birthplace for the e-tron GT. As it stands, RS e-tron GT production is completely carbon neutral. The electricity used in the production process is all carbon free, the aluminium in the chassis is from a closed loop and Audi purchases carbon credits to offset the carbon that is inevitable. This isn’t where the story ends for Audi’s apex predator. The new RS e-tron GT Performance is lurking in the wings, bumping up power to a ridiculous 912bhp. That cuts the 0-100kmph time down to just 2.5 seconds. 0-200kmph in 8 seconds flat! We drove it in Germany and the acceleration is just staggering. To handle all that power, to reduce the stress on the body, there is an active suspension system that can tilt the body into corners and counteract the pitching caused by acceleration and braking. It even rises up in an instant when you open the door, making it easier for Sirish’s old creaking knees. You should see him trying to get out of the R8.