Supercar still casting its spell
This head-turning Audi rocks a V10, but now with even more horsepower
ASCARI, Spain — A V10 engine in this era of hyperbole over electric cars is like faceto-face conversation — a rare occurrence in a world consumed by texts, chats and instant messaging.
A V10 is old-school. Unconventional. Have the people at Audi not read the news, seen that everyone is going gaga over turbos on smaller engines?
Or maybe it is precisely because they have read the tea leaves that Audi engineers are standing firm on keeping the 5.2-litre V10 in their 2020 R8. This is the mid-engine sports car that cast a spell over so many of us when it debuted in 2005 with its paradoxically gorgeous silhouette and furious face. Suddenly there was an option to the Porsche 911 GT3, one with far better balance, not to mention quattro AWD.
Like the GT3, which remains naturally aspirated to this day, the R8 continues to get better with time. Without radically altering its identity, the R8 has always evolved more than it revolutionized.
The $185,000 car advances without relinquishing its past. It continues on a path of perfecting what works and discarding what doesn’t. And it remains one of the more coveted cars of our time, still able to lock the eyes of every pedestrian it passes.
Casual observers are not likely to recognize the changes to the 2020 R8, but the alterations are numerous. The chin is more angular, the grille a little wider, with corner vents that stretch up to a line in the fenders in an effort to mimic the R8 LMS GT3 race cars. The headlights reach a little deeper to the grille, and three small vents above the grille give a nod to those on the Audi 80-based Quattro coupe from 1980.
The body now looks almost Lamborghini-narrow with off-colour rocker trim. The rear is blessed with exhaust ovals as big as paint cans, housed between a ribbed diffuser that looks borrowed from Audi Racing.
A full-width mesh rear fascia below the tail lights improves venting and visual access to the exhaust works. New optional 20-inch wheels remove visual heft, and new colours include a stunning Kemora Gray and Ascari Blue.
The sound, of course, remains more delicious than a plate of barbecued rib-eyes. In track mode, the resonance is deep, mysterious, desirable.
The smell of leather and Alcantara in the unchanged interior is divine. When the track flagger gives three of us the green, our separate cars erupt in a fury of vexatious but utterly rapturous V10 harmony, 30 pistons all screaming together at fever pitch through first, second and third on our way to turn one at Circuito Ascari in Spain.
The V10 engines in these cars have also improved. The base car gains 30 horsepower, to 570. Torque is now 406 pound-feet. The V10 Performance (formerly the V10 Plus) gains 10 hp, to register at 620, with torque at 428 lb-ft, allowing for 100 km/h to be reached in 3.1 seconds.
Engine oil is cooled by its own radiator, drawn from a dry sump, allowing the engine to sit lower in the bay. Audi says the oil pump has “multiple suction stages” to ensure everything stays well lubed, even up to 1.5 G. Yes, 1.5.
Around turn two, I am not thinking about oil as gravitational forces pull my eyeballs further back in their sockets. The R8 arcs hard on a long bend, holding to the track with the bite of a provoked pit bull, the new Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires designed purposely around this car.
The steering and suspension have been sharpened, too. And although there is less track focus than a GT3, there is a high degree of control and accuracy, a superior level of comfort, a happy marriage of smoothness and high speed.
The seven-speed S-tronic dual-clutch transmission is crisp, timely and quick. The electromechanical power steering is said to give more feedback and better precision, but I can’t recall it lacking before. The best feeling comes with an optional front sway bar made from carbon fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) and aluminum, elevating control to a Lamborghini-like place. The steering may not be perfect like the GT3’s, but it is damn close.
In track mode, the sticky tires will break free with too much throttle in a corner, and the car will rotate all four tires in elegant four-wheel drifts until the quattro system regains traction. The stability control (which can be shut off) gives the driver a long leash. Three additional programs — dry, wet, and snow — have been added to the drive-select modes. But, gosh, is this car eager to attack corners at high speed. Just when it seems the R8 is at its limit, pushing harder reveals more abilities.
Where the outer limits of the R8 are is hard to say; we didn’t run enough laps to find out.
But even a full day of tracking, or 24 hours at the Nürburgring, would not be enough track time in the R8, so enjoyable is plumbing the remarkable depths of its V10, an engine that may not be in step with automotive trends, but one that never ceases to amaze.