How it Feels to Drive an Audi R8 at 230kph

First Track Drive of an Audi R8 at 230kph

R8 is an Audi that promises so much. Like the rest of the German car-maker’s stable, R8 is mild and unassuming. There is none of the palaver that goes with a Porker, or the frippery of a Ferrari, or the unnecessary excess of a laconic Lambo. No, the R8 sits deservedly at the top of Audi’s heap. It is sexy AF, but above all, it does what it says on the box, every time, without fail.

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R8 engineering is wrapped in a subtle, understated skin that will look as good in 20 years as it does now. Then there is the snarling V10, with a rawness that girds R8’s loins, and cradles its overt masculinity like a volcano hugs its lava. It glistens under its glass dome like a crown jewel, but unlike the crown jewels, the V10 harnesses staggering power of a thousand small suns. The 449kw V10 has 560Nm of torque, enough to rocket the 1595kg coupe to 100 in 3.2 seconds. Sure, that is fast, but it is how it transforms your soul that that is the thing money just can’t buy.

Of the 10 drivers, 3 were gay. We like a fast car, there is no denying it.

Everything about it is sexy, and as track focused as the Audi is, it is every bit the true GT car.

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ABOVE: 2021 Audi Driver Experience Day at Phillip Island

We started with a briefing. The day was periodically damp, and a moist track can be a challenge. Steve Pizzati did his thing, then we were off.

Of the 5 R/RS cars on offer, the R8 sat meekly at the end of the queue. All the other cars were taken, so I wandered, helmet in hand, to the end. My po-faced expression evaporated as I reached for the doorhandle. There was no way to open the door, and it dawned on me that I had to reach under a deep, masculine fold of metal to reach the concealed opener. The sits within the air intake for the mid-mounted motor, a beautiful piece of design. I was standing beside an Audi R8, not a TT.

I entered the cabin with a deference worthy of the Dalai Lama, but there was no time to breathe in the magnificence. My instructor awaited my rushed preparedness with a calmed demeanour. There was no ceremony as my R8 virginity was about to be plucked. Instead, a brief thumbs up summoned the hell-like power from just behind my head. I shifted the S-tronic in to drive, then “sport” with a further pull. There was an indiscernible shift in the R8’s personality, as if it wasn’t angry enough as it was.

We moved forward, slowly at first.

The two R8’s rolled onto the track, and had it been in a movie, we’d have emerged through a blue-grey mist to the accompaniment of discordant strains. In seconds, all hell had broken loose. The duo of V10s was hurtling along the 4.2km course at more than twice street limit. In my amateur hands, the R8 was a weapon. A single slip at 220kph could mean my molecules being dispersed at an undesirable rate. As we came in to corners, the two-way cackled with calm and precise directions that were followed to the letter.

Since braking at these stratospheric speeds in no way resembles stopping at traffic lights, I was cautious enough to be calmly enthusiastic. A light dab of brake causes the body to shift and shimmy. The engine screams, and tyres squirm and scramble for grip on the greasy tarmac. Then, you enter your first corner, hit your first apex, and the insane babble recedes. As you hit the gas, the double clutch physically selects a nice low gear, causing the revs to rise to an Olympically guzzling rate, and the QUATTRO to hunker down and grip ferociously. You feel yourself in a Tardis-like transmogrification, and the world outside starts to warp and bend. The only things in the universe are you, your R8, and the R8 in front of you. You’re strung together like celestial pearls of ancient DNA.

You’re no longer driving a car. Instead, you’re piloting your soul through time and space. You’re moving through the magnetosphere in a way that is independent of thought or motion. The constant cackle of two-way chatter barely registers. Its instruction is transmitted through your hands to mother earth. Your aware of the massive forces exerted as your body changes direction, and of the cacophonic soundtrack, but the spell is broken in an instant.

You’ve completed 6 laps and you’re cooling the car down. I had driven at around 230kph for the first time in my life. It was the fastest this human had gone, while at the wheel.

What is alchemy? Twenty kilometres has passed in the blink of an eye. Time was compressed and many minutes became just one.

You coast in to pit lane, stop, and put the S-tronic in to park. No brakes are used lest they lock shut as they cool. No matter what else happens in your life, you will never, ever, ever, experience your first laps in an R8 ever again.

You could drive for a thousand years, but nothing will ever equal it, you will never feel this again. Next up, a hot lap in an R8 with Melinda Price!

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