RISKY BUSINESS
Audi has unleashed a sharper, RWD-only R8. Is it the car to dethrone the 911 GT3? We find out on a trip to a wintry Snowdonia
“Addictive? It’s like crack cocaine. Or possibly Krispy Kreme donuts”
Water is wet, the sun is hot, Snowdonia in winter is freezing. But for some reason, it’s still a bit surprising exactly how aggressively frigid this bit of Wales can be at 5am when the cold leaps out and ambushes your breath, slipping down your throat with a burn like cheap whisky. It is exactly, precisely and entirely the wrong place to test a supercar in winter. So we brought two. Not only that, we brought a pair of very specifc, rear-wheel-drive variants, when both manufacturers make exceptional four-wheel-drive versions of the same car. Go us.
The brand-new Audi R8 RWS is the real newbie. A rear-drive-only version of the previously AWDonly R8, RWS standing for Rear Wheel Series rather than ‘rear-wheel steer’. Only 999 will be made, all with no front dif, dynamic steering nonsense or adaptive damping, a mechanical locking rear diferential, the usual naturally aspirated 5.2-litre V10 – this time with 533bhp/398lb ft – and a 50kg weight drop over a standard car. A car for drivers, then. Not so much stripped out, as pared back a bit, but defnitely one aimed at the kind of people who like things a bit more lively. It goes up against the Porsche 911 GT3, with both cars appealing to enthusiasts, costing in the region of £110k and with roughly the same power and potential. Game, as they say, on.
The frst impression is that the R8 isn’t actually that diferent. Still a DSG, still with a full-fat R8 interior and comfy electric seats. There are no wings or even badges externally (just a “one of 999” plaque on the dash), and it keeps all the interior bells ’n’ whistles. The V10 fres with the familiar operatic crackle, and there’s still a gentle, unseen diligence to the way it goes about things. Heading out into the hinterlands, it’s easy and compliant and bloody fast. Natural aspiration rocks, and this V10 at high revs is still utterly glorious, building power in a cultured, hungry, metered wave. Go faster, and the front end feels more precise than the AWD car’s; lighter, more connected, uncorrupted by the slight tugging you get from the standard vehicle when it’s slippy out. It’s also more confdent than you might imagine, even when surprised by mid-corner drifts. And by that, I mean snowdrifts rather than deliberate sideways action. Yeah, Snowdonia.
The Porsche 911 is similarly familiar, a known entity. This GT3 is a manual, possibly the apogee
of the road-drivable track-day car. Half caged, lightened and tightened, immediately precise. The seats are tight, straight-backed, pious and pew-like, the slim-rimmed Alcantara wheel neat beneath your fngers. It crashes to life with an unglamorous bark, settles to a dirty chunter, sounding industrial rather than particularly fancy or immediately exotic like the R8. But here’s the thing with most Porsches, and 911s in particular: they are, for most sizes of human, ergonomically fabulous. The wheel sits perfectly, with that weird little elbow-to-arm ratio easy to fnd, the gearlever dropping into your palm like a best friend’s handshake. The pedals are straight and standard, and the weights and positions as good as it gets.
There’s a lack of sound deadening up in those rear arches – gravel sparkles noisily up inside them every time it gets a chance – the roll cage creaks a bit, the suspension is short-stroked and initially feels very frm. It’s also on fat-faced and decidedly track-day-ish Cup 2 tyres, which have as much grip in slush as an excited greyhound on a polished wood foor. Possibly less. It feels a bit nervy next to the Audi, more wound, more intense. It feels like it’s going to kick, even at relatively slow speeds where the R8 is confdent, and it has that slightly feral edge lurking around the corner of the next two centimetres of throttle. And then, when you expect it to shimmy, it doesn’t. It just digs a bit. Then a bit more. The engine is punchy and strong, but nothing ridiculous below 5,000rpm and it’s all just a bit… well... a bit 911. Lovely steering, no sense of rear-engine bias, a slick-transition car that you can carry speed, and trust as long as you’re smooth. But it’s got some more revs to expose. Which is when it makes the Audi feel like a trim line.
This is a car that does not exist in its entirety until it is going fast and, frankly, getting the s**t kicked out
of it. Oh, it’s nice enough, fun and exciting. But the whole car locks into its mission statement at about 6,500rpm and doesn’t let go until 9. The experience is born in third gear with the rev-counter at four o’clock on the dial. Addictive? It’s like crack cocaine. Or possibly Krispy Kreme donuts. Restraint sold separately. Where the Audi builds a wall of power and changes its engine note on a smooth scale, the GT3 switches character with each 500rpm. You can make a fction of any stretch that’s even vaguely straight. Ball up the physical distance and simply step across the fold, gravity pulled 90° rearwards, your skull cradled by a little pad instead of a headrest. The engine making a fst of its fury and howling, reverberating through the cabin like feedback from God’s own stadium stack. It’s not easy – it hops and moves and darts and is generally less compliant than the R8, but it’s intense and involving in a way the Audi isn’t. You’d buy it for the steering alone. The information and feedback is so dense that it takes a little while to start to unpack it. We’re so used to fake feelings that when we get the real thing, we suddenly get what must be the equivalent of haptic pins and needles as real feelings return.
After a day or so, and mourning the death of any remaining body heat, the result is clear. On paper, these two are squaring of. Both around £110k, both purist catnip, rear-wheel drive and naturally aspirated. They both have in the region of 500bhp – a bit of a sweet-spot for current road cars, in my opinion – both clocking high threes zero to 62mph and with the same surely-they-could-have-got-2mph-more 198mph top speed. And yet they don’t even really compete. The Audi R8 RWS is an excellent addition to the R8 line-up, and a pleasingly “cheap” one. It’s possibly the best R8, full stop, because it’s more fun to drive and has barely less grip in most situations. But it’s not really a full-on special. If it had a manual, even if it were slower, it would be a totally diferent proposition. But it hasn’t. As such, it’s a tidy, entertaining footnote. At the opposite end of the family tree, the Porsche 911 GT3 isn’t just a version of the 911. It feels like a thing all on its own, a honed, specifc commitment. It’s less comfortable than the R8, less cosseting, but that’s the point. It’s a weekend blast, a “drive to a track day and kick some arse” kind of car. As a manual, in this specifcation, it becomes superlative. It’ll take more than just an R8 with rear-wheel drive to change that.