The R8 V10's track capabilities are well known, but just how well does the supercar do in everyday conditions.
But the fun didn’t last long, and the traffic started thickening again. So I left the city and headed out onto the Mumbai-Pune expressway. Time to put this car’s handling to the test on the twisting section of the Lonavala ghats and Aamby Valley. Where most supercars can feel intimidating charging up a mountain road, the Audi simply doesn’t. Perhaps it is the steering, specifically the amount of reassurance it offered in being so accurate, maybe it’s the safe understeer you sense when you push hard, or maybe it’s just grip from the 295 section tyres and the Quattro all-wheel-drive system. Whatever it is, I could go up and down this road all day without breaking a sweat.
You can take liberties with the R8. It is a supercar that’s willing to allow a driver a second chance. It is so agile, so keen to change direction that adding steering inputs halfway through a turn is entirely acceptable. Our test car was fitted with optional adaptive damping, and in Normal mode, it judged damping on most surfaces well enough. It never felt explicitly comfortable, but at the same time, never felt harsh either. But then I switched the system to Sport and the ride deteriorated considerably. Best save this setting for when the road surface is smooth, and there’s a realistic opportunity to really go for it.
Even on the braking front, the drilled and ventilated petal discs, gripped by four-piston callipers front and rear, did everything that could possibly be asked of them on the road. The pedal was always solid and the anti-lock remarkably unobtrusive. But the R8’s ability to come to a halt from 80kph in 2.0sec is nothing compared to the manner in which these brakes will handle sustained abuse.