Weapons grade

A fortnight ago, Rinaldo ‘Dindo’ Capello was hunkered down at home in Piedmont, Italy. It was cold, below freezing overnight, but Dindo was warmed by the black cherry and vanilla notes in the local glass of Barbera d’Alba in his hand, and by the white truffled pasta in his belly. Dindo – trim at 51, the three-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans – was home and happy. An Audi legend.

Now Dindo is standing on a bare swathe of concrete at Sydney Motorsport Park, where it is nudging 30 degrees. Humidity is in the nineties. Unfiltered Australian sunlight bounces from the skidpan – torture! – and Dindo’s ears are thick with the chatter of lesser drivers, circling, buzzing, tapping his shoulder, seeking his advice.

Dindo is not home. Dindo is, arguably, harried. But is Dindo happy? Oh, yes. Because that sunlight also chimes and dances off a fleet of all-new Audi R8s. And that chatter is eclipsed by its new, throatier, almost hissing engine note. Its blips and barks jangle the heavy air and stir his motorsport heart.

This is the second iteration of the iconic R8. A car which launched in 2007, and fast re-established Audi’s motorsport reputation. Dindo would take subsequent, track-honed versions of that original model to Le Mans glory. This time around, there’s a lot to be excited by. For the first time, the R8 and its track-going counterpart, the Audi LMS, have been developed simultaneously.

“No production car is closer to its racing iteration than the new R8,” Andrew Doyle, Audi Australia’s MD had earlier said. Dindo agrees. It’s why he’s here.

“You know how at Audi Sport they say, ‘Born on the track, build for the road’?” says Dindo. “That’s me: I am the perfect link between the race track and the road car.”

“I started with the Audi 80 in touring cars in 1994, and finished in 2012 with the e-tron quattro at Le Mans. I had the privilege to live different eras of motorsport. Touring cars to Le Mans, petrol to diesel engine, TDI to e-tron. 

“By then, when I retired, I loved Audi so much that I became a dealer in Italy. See: track to road.”

The depth of crossover between the new R8 Coupe and its fire-breathing track sibling, the R8 LMS, is considerable – and like Dindo’s impressive career, perhaps most easily expressed in numbers.

Take the Audi space frame. Composed of 79 percent aluminium, and 13 percent carbon fibre reinforced polymer, the R8’s chassis shares a 95 percent correlation with the LMS. They share fully 50 percent of parts, including identical 5.2FSI V10 plus engines, produced on the same factory line in Győr, Hungary. (The R8 is itself meticulously put together in a brand-new, purpose-built, 23-hectare, €650M factory in Germany’s Böllinger Höfe.)

As in the previous car, race technology such as dry-sump lubrication crosses over the production model, bolstered this time by extensive CFRP in the bodywork (the LMS’s outer shell is 100 percent CFRP; the R8’s augmented by aluminium, alloy and clear-coated carbon fibre). Other numbers sound like pub boasts: gearshifts in the hundredths of a second; each brake horsepower in the V10 plus lugging just 2.3kg of car.

Then there’s the stopwatch. The R8 V10 plus road car and the Audi R8 LMS share an identical 0-100km/h time of just 3.2 seconds (3.5s in the Audi R8 V10). The production car tips the scales at 1454kg; the track demon at 1225kg. Incredibly, the road car actually produces more power than its pure-sport sibling – 449kW to 430kW – with the LMS’s output is capped by race regulations. Top speeds are 320km/h for the V10, 330km/h for the V10 plus and 305km/h for the LMS (again curtailed by race rules). 

Like Dindo, however, to speak of numbers alone would be to do the new R8 V10 a disservice – as those skidpan ‘civilians’ are learning, to their collective joy. (Their number includes leading Australian motoring journalists, and some of Audi Australia’s most track-happy ambassadors, including an ebullient Guillaume Brahimi and an excited former Wallaby in Matt Burke.)

The all-new Audi R8 is literally festooned with cutting edge technology, from the cockpit to the aerodynamics, through the suspension to the drivetrain, to the materials and the brakes. But it’s arguably one feature, unique to Ingolstadt, which makes the new R8 the world greatest new sports car. And the most fun to drive. Certainly – despite its colossal output – the most forgiving.

The previous R8 was renowned as being the world’s most useful supercar. A phenomenon of brutal power capable of the most delicate touches; a machete with a scalpel’s dexterity. An elegant, live-with-able machine, just as capable of devouring track-day rivals as of nipping down to the shops (albeit rather quickly).

The reason: quattro. The principle behind Audi’s famous system has remained the same for 35 years, improving on each iteration. After an afternoon at what was once Eastern Creek, there’s no doubt that this is its most remarkable version yet.

A fact of which Dindo is acutely, beamingly aware.

“In terms of high-performance product, Audi has something that nobody else has,” he says. “Quattro makes such very, very powerful cars so easy to drive. It’s a huge difference. 

“If you take the latest R8 – for me, the very top among the sport cars that you can get today – and you try to remove every electronic control and make a lap. And then you try some car from a competitor, say a Ferrari 488, and try to drive that car without any electronic control, and then you will see the difference!’ Because the R8 is just so easy, even with 600bhp, even without electronic help! That is just due to the quattro and the balance of the car. 

“The R8 is, in theory, something – a beast! Very difficult to drive, 600bhp! But it is just so easy! For me, this is what makes the difference and puts Audi ahead of its competitors. It is unique.

“And the same stuff Audi has done on the road car, they have also done on the race car. That’s why I’m here.”