The job description for an F1 hot-lap automobile may be very particular. It needs to be quick sufficient to scare a paying VIP into pondering they’ve glimpsed what the precise drivers do, planted sufficient to deal with a circuit at race-weekend grip ranges with no rollcage, and on-brand sufficient to justify the producer paying for the privilege. For Miami, Audi has handed that job to a 5,200-pound plug-in hybrid wagon and sedan.
The Audi RS 5 is the model’s first PHEV carrying an RS badge, and dropping it into Pirelli Scorching Laps obligation on the Miami Grand Prix is a reasonably unsubtle manner of arguing that electrification and a aggressive (and enjoyable) lap time can share a storage. The identical argument Audi will probably be making within the precise race a number of hours later, the place the F1 powertrain it’s been creating in Germany can also be a hybrid.
What’s Really Doing the Driving
The {hardware} is genuinely attention-grabbing earlier than you get to the advertising and marketing.
The brand new RS 5 pairs a 2.9-liter twin-turbo V6 producing 375 kW (510 PS) with a 130 kW electrical motor, for a system output of 470 kW (639 PS) and an elective prime pace of 285 km/h.
The Audi RS 5 subsequent to the Audi R26 in entrance of the skyline of Miami. The RS 5 makes its debut on the Formulation 1 Miami Grand Prix as a automobile for the F1® Pirelli Scorching Laps
Audi claims a 0-62 mph time of three.6 seconds, and in EV mode the V6 shuts off solely, letting the RS 5 journey on battery energy for as much as 54 miles.
The actually attention-grabbing bit, nevertheless, is the rear axle. The RS 5 introduces a brand new technology quattro drivetrain with Dynamic Torque Management, an electromechanical setup that pushes torque to whichever rear wheel has extra grip mid-corner. Audi is asking it a world-first within the phase.
Markus Winkelhock, one of many two drivers from Audi Sport pummelling the hot-lap automobiles in Miami alongside five-time Sebring winner Dindo Capello, says the tight stuff round Arduous Rock Stadium is strictly the place that system earns its maintain.
“Particularly in tight corners like these on the monitor across the Arduous Rock Stadium in Miami, the quattro with Dynamic Torque Management can actually showcase its benefits,” he mentioned in Audi’s launch. “For me, that is tangible Vorsprung durch Technik, which Audi drivers can expertise by an distinctive mix of most sportiness and on a regular basis consolation.”
There’s, as you’d anticipate, an asterisk.
The Audi RS 5 makes its debut on the Formulation 1 Miami Grand Prix as a automobile for the F1® Pirelli Scorching Laps
The Avant ideas the scales at 5,225 kilos (2,370 kilograms) in European specification, which is supercar-and-a-half territory for a midsize wagon. Autocar’s overview concedes the quantity is daunting on paper however argues the chassis hides it convincingly on an actual highway. Scorching-lap passengers in Miami will get about 90 seconds to type their very own opinion.
Why Audi Is Spending the Cash in Miami
F1 has gone from a curiosity within the US to a sold-out three-race calendar, and Audi is timing its US push to trip that wave. The Q3 launched stateside in March with a marketing campaign fronted by Morgan Freeman and Chase Infiniti. The brand new Q7 and a US-tailored Q9 flagship are due earlier than the tip of the yr. Placing the RS 5 within the Pirelli Scorching Laps slot at Miami is the efficiency halo on prime of an SUV-heavy product offensive.
Marco Schubert, Audi’s board member for gross sales and advertising and marketing, known as it within the firm’s launch as bringing the model’s transformation “to life on the highway” whereas constructing an emotional reference to F1 followers which is the type of factor executives say in press releases when they need you to purchase a Q9…
The Audi RS 5 makes its debut on the Formulation 1 Miami Grand Prix as a automobile for the F1® Pirelli Scorching Laps
The larger story is that that is Audi’s first time competing on US soil as a manufacturing unit group because the 2021 Formulation E race in New York. The RS 5 isn’t operating on the precise Grand Prix circuit throughout the race, however it’s the consumer-facing model of the identical guess Audi is making on the works degree: that hybridized efficiency, carried out correctly, doesn’t should really feel like a compromise.
Whether or not consumers agree with that will probably be settled with regards to gross sales figures. However Miami is no less than the place the argument begins.
