Ever wondered what’s the recipe of making ‘pure adrenaline rush’? Well, all it takes is two important ingredients - a closed airstrip all to yourself, and the latest Audi R8 V10 plus supercar. And we had both by our side on a bright and sunny day just outside Bangalore which paved the way for making this recipe a success.
Far away from regular-day cars that do not intimidate you a bit, the R8 gives you the idea of its ‘monstrous’ potential just by its sheer design. This latest avatar in particular gets a meaner, sharper and more aggressive stance. What quickly grabs attention are the impressive laser headlights, large hexagonal grille and the massive air dams at the front and onto the sides as well. Not only meant to look great, its large 19-inch wheels wearing super sticky Continental rubber along with an aggressive rear spoiler and a slick carbon fibre side blade inspires confidence too.
On the whole, the R8 is surely not the most beautiful thing out there competing with its Italian counterparts with an exotic design lineage. But, this German supercar carries its own aura and with this new outing, it means business. The business to toss you around and grab you by the scruff of your neck so you reach your destination even before you would imagine!
After admiring its exterior for a good amount of time, we then stepped in to get the real taste of the ‘pure adrenaline rush’, that we are after. This is a driver’s car, make no mistake about it. Cockpit setup appears to be driver friendlier than ever before. Sharing up to 50 per cent of its parts with the Le Mans racecar, you do get to sense that sitting just a foot above the ground as it embraces both entities – driver and the car – as one. Thanks to its ‘monoposto’ concept design, the driver is completely cocooned in the captain’s seat. Although being loaded with a plethora of tech features, we kept our sight limited to the large TFT display showing the meters just behind the flat-bottom leather wrapped steering wheel and a glance of the low-slung nose. With very limited time by our side, we went straight to business pressing the big red button on the steering, heard the symphony of cylinders firing up at the back and we were to blast-off.
Churning out a humongous 610PS of peak power along with a deadly torque measuring 560Nm, this V10 motor on the R8 is the same installed under Lamborghini Huracan’s hood. Mated to a dual-clutch S-Tronic automatic transmission, power is sent to all the four wheels making use of Audi’s Quattro technology. With so much power waiting to be unleashed, we had all the reasons to make use of every cylinder on the massive 1.7 km airstrip.
Just so you know, this is how the car setting was: gearbox switched to Sport while the engine set in the monstrous mode (i.e. Performance). Before realizing the after effects of flooring the accelerator pedal (which we did immediately), we had already covered a good distance and all we could hear was a beautiful note coming from the mammoth V10 motor.
We crossed 100kmph mark from a halt in a mere 3.2 seconds, which is the same amount of time that you might take reading this line. So you can imagine the adrenaline rush going through your body. For the records, the R8 can clock a top speed of 330kmph without a sweat. Matching up to such high speeds, we have to admit that the all-wheel-drive system is of great use here which keeps the R8 calm and allows it get a superior grip off the line. While the revs did build-up for its ‘launch’, unsurprisingly, it didn’t show any bilateral movement or shakiness and surged straight ahead like a bullet. When one accelerates that quick you need a reliable de-accelerating mechanism too, after all, one has to stop somewhere! The R8 we were belting out was equipped with optional ceramic brake package which made braking from over 250kmph a pretty smooth affair.
Although we just managed to take this roaring machine out on a sprint; it was clear that Audi means business with the new R8. It’s lighter, sharper, meaner and, at the same time charming as well. It seems that this German supercar is heading in the right direction but until we get our hands on one to test its all-round performance, we can’t really know how ‘good’ it is. So do watch this space for an in-depth review soon.
Source: CarDekho.com
