The R8 V10 plus responds to every millimetre of throttle input. It’s agile, yes, but it can be driven around slowly and out of tight parking spaces without lurching forward every time your foot tries to connect with the pedal. There are four driving modes: Comfort, Dynamic, Auto and Individual. The revs gather quickly whichever mode you may be in. In Comfort, it shifts up through the S-tronic box quickly. The gear display shows a ‘D’ followed by the gear. In Dynamic, it changes to ‘S’, with an ‘M’ coming on when you hit the chequered flag button. Speaking of which…
Moist and windy it may have been, but the Audi R8 V10 plus rocketed off the line. The quattro system splits the power well and, given some stick, sends a deluge to the rear via the e-diff, making the front end go light. It hits 100 km/h in just 3.7 seconds and cracks the quarter-mile in a shade under 12 seconds at over 192 km/h. The Virtual Cockpit comes to life there.
A Need For Speed-style digital shift indicator isn’t just a blinking green light, no. The digital tacho needle dons a cape that changes colour from green to yellow to red as you go up the revs building the power. Yank on the right paddle in time and you’re rewarded with another gear and more revs and more power and more noise! Mis-time the shift, however, and the cape glows red on the overrev past 9k, leaving you distraught and grieving if you breathe petrol. Then you realise you still have another chance. Another gear. Another yank on the paddle. More adrenaline. More revs. More noise! It’s an absolute delight. Audi claim a run of 3.2 seconds and a top whack of 330 km/h. I don’t dispute. This thing is wicked quick! And it sounds even more intense with the engine inches away from the back of your head.
The ride is quite firm, with a stiff suspension setup even in ‘Comfort’ mode. However, change direction at speed and the R8 remains planted as ever. At normal road speeds, taking a roundabout had my head swaying away from me but, on the open road, a flick to the left and the lateral forces take a greater toll on your body and mind than the car, which goes about business as usual even at speeds exceeding 160 km/h, with the grip levels from the mixed rubber far from peak. The R8 simply sticks to the road. That’s when I’d felt the need for an F1-style HANS device. Then there are the brakes, carbon-ceramic units that are bitten by six-pot front callipers and four-pot rear ones, from Audi’s top shelf with RS initials. Even with the R8 V10 plus weighing in at 1,555 kg wet, speed is shed staggeringly quick.
Consider that the old R8 LMX, complete with its laser light show and all of 570 PS, cost Rs 2.97 crore. That makes the new R8 V10 plus, with its 40 extra horses seem like a bargain at Rs 2.47 crore; a full half-crore lower price-tag. Then there’s the efficiency. Decent 4.5-km/l city and 9.0-km/l highway figures work out to a combined 5.6 km/l. If you’ve dreamed of having something that gets you and your pulse racing, and that goes faster even faster, this new R8 does just that: accelerate everything.
