The New Audi R8 V10 Is A Beautiful 600bhp Monster You Really Can Use As A Daily

The launch of an all-new Audi R8 is a big deal. When the original car was revealed back in 2006, the motoring world looked on with curiosity, wondering if this premium German brand could really go toe-to-toe with the established sports car names. Porsche pretty much had the scene on lock down, but Audi stepped in with a gloriously Germanic take on exotica, ushering in a new era of approachable supercars.

Knowing what we know now, it’s ludicrous to think that we ever doubted the impact that the R8 would have. It was originally launched in V8 form only, but once the 5.2-litre V10 entered production, this sleek Audi suddenly had the power and the capabilities to be considered a legitimate supercar. It’s never quite lived up to a Ferrari’s evocative character, but nothing else could match the R8’s Jekyll and Hyde nature; cruising about town it’s quiet and comfortable with decent visibility, but hit the throttle, and it’ll pin you to the back of your chair.

So the second generation car has big shoes to fill. And as we walk across the runway at Le Castellat airport towards a fleet of new R8s parked before us, I’m hit with equal levels of excitement and intrigue as to what Audi’s mustered up for us.

In the metal, the car looks familiar, with Audi clearly taking an if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it approach to styling. The new car is more angular and squared off at the edges now, giving it what an old school car magazine might refer to as ‘a purposeful stance,’ but which I think is better described as looking bloody mean. If its body panels began breaking apart, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if it transformed into some kind of Decepticon henchman.

Once you’re in the driving seat, the first thing you’ll notice is that the seating position is offset by a fraction, with your body aiming slightly towards the centre of the car. One would assume that this is a byproduct of the conversion to right-hand drive, but once you’ve spent five minutes on the road you won’t notice it.

What you will notice are your legs turning to jelly as you sink your foot into the throttle pedal causing gravity to pool the blood in your extremities, the car grabbing the scenery by the scruff of the neck and yanking it backwards, supplanting you at the next corner’s braking point before you’ve had time to recalibrate your senses. Unsurprisingly, this is the most powerful production engine Audi has ever produced: 602bhp and 413lb ft of torque. We’re driving the ‘plus’ model; in standard trim you’re looking at 533bhp.

All new R8s will come with a new faster-shifting dual clutch S tronic gearbox, as the semi-automatic transmission made up a whopping 99 per cent of first-gen R8 sales over the last three years. Only the most ardent nostalgia freak will miss the manual as its shifts are lightning quick with the paddle shifters. It’ll even let you hold on to gears deep into the red line, and won’t be stingy with downshifts when you’re really giving it what for. The only minor complaint is that even in its most ferocious modes, if you plant your foot in full auto from a higher gear, there is a moment’s hesitation before all that power is let loose on the tarmac.

The roads up in the mountains of Le Castellet are truly sublime, and worthy of any tarmac rally. My favourite section begins with longer, winding sweepers melting into the kind of twisty blacktop that handbrakes were made for. The R8 is at home in the first section, belting between the trees, never losing momentum as you lean on the outer tyres. In the tighter section the car’s just too wide to really give it hell, but it’s fun finding the limits on hairpins with visibility that allow such frivolities.

The all-wheel drive quattro system gives the car a sure-footedness that imbues limit-pushing confidence from the moment you’re in the car. If you get on the power too early you’ll induce understeer, but power on past the apex with a bit of lock on and the back will step out. Yes, this is still very much a rear-biased car, with 100 per cent of torque capable of reaching the rear wheels thanks to a new electrohydraulic multi-plate clutch.

Despite it feeling like its footprint is massive, the R8 still feels nimble in those scarily tight sections. This is, in part, thanks to the high-strength Audi Space Frame, which uses a mix of aluminium and carbonfibre-reinforced polymers (CFRP) to contribute to the new R8 plus being 40kg lighter than before at 1555kg (the standard V10 is 50kg lighter than before, at 1595kg). Even so, the huge ceramic brakes, which launch you into your seatbelt under heavy braking, did seem to struggle to cope with sustained battering, with the pedal going a little soft; a few minutes of restraint fixed that, but it’s a surprise.

The engine is a sonorous highlight, as you’d expect a 5.2-litre high-revving V10 to be. Each engine is hand-built in a Hungarian factory, (and every car is hand built by Quattro engineers in Germany), but it still retains that clinical mass produced sense of purpose we’ve come to expect from Audi. That’s no bad thing. Performance is wonderfully linear, and it sounds mega; the only caveat to that comes when you’re holding the V10 at steady revs high in the band, when the engine’s orgasmic, climactic wail is replaced by an oddly metallic, pained scream. The sports exhaust pops and crackles on request, and naturally, this wholly unnecessary, obnoxious behaviour takes place constantly.

The interior is as perfect as you could expect, with luxurious leather clad across the dashboard. The bucket seats in my car were clad in fine Nappa leather, an optional package that costs a whopping £2750, and while they’re surprisingly comfortable, they don’t recline; as a fairly tall chap, I need a little lean backwards otherwise I feel like I’m lumbering over the wheel leading to complaints about back pain like the dithering old man I’m apparently becoming.

No complaints anywhere else; the R8 gets a sexier version of the temperature dials first seen in the new TT, which have the knob and readout merged into one; an ingenious design decision. The highlight is the Virtual Cockpit, though, which is a joy to use. The whole instrument binnacle is taken up with a stunning 12.3-inch TFT display, and you can change what’s in view at the flick of a button. Satellite navigation (which did fail at one point, leaving me hopelessly lost by the seaside), audio, mobile phone connectivity and everything else are all controlled here, freeing up the centre console and giving a more driver-centric, minimalist feel.

So as you can probably tell, aside from that Virtual Cockpit, there’s nothing particularly revolutionary here. The Audi R8 hasn’t suddenly morphed into a characterful supercar, singing and dancing its way down the road, but it has taken everything that was great about it before and turned that up to 11. What you’re left with is a car in which you could happily cruise in across Europe, Comfort mode enabled and heated leather seats warming your back side; when the mood takes you, hit Dynamic mode and wield a car-shaped battering ram that beats the horizon into submission every time you hit the accelerator pedal.

The ‘entry level’ V10 starts at £119,500, while the V10 plus costs from £134,500. And that’s before options; our car had nearly £20,000 worth of extras, including £1750 on a top spec Bang & Olufsen stereo system - which I never turned on, because V10 - and £2950 for a gloss carbon engine bay coating.

If you’re looking for a fizz-inducing weekend poser-mobile, the R8 will be more than adequate for most, but for those who like old school kicks it still might not quite have what you’re after. It’s not the sort of car that’ll make you giggle like a child the second you slip inside it, but what it is is a spine-tinglingly fast feat of engineering, that could easily be your daily. For a car that looks and goes as this does, that’s quite some achievement.