Yahoo Autos 2018 Audi TT RS at Lightning Lap 2018
Lap Time: 2:58.5
Class: LL3 | Base Price: $76,147 | As-Tested Price: $81,722
Power and Weight: 400 hp • 3282 lb • 8.2 lb/hp
Tires: Pirelli P Zero Corsa Asimmetrico 2, 255/30ZR-20 (92Y)
The TT RS’s 400-hp inline-five howls with feral intensity. Its seven-speed dual-clutch is as graceful and ruthless as Tonya Harding. It stops with carbon-ceramic front brake rotors (part of the $6000 Dynamic Plus package) and sticks with $1522 worth of Ingolstadt-sanctioned, dealer-installed Pirelli P Zero Corsa Asimmetrico 2 tires. And all that go-fast kit motivates and slows just 3282 pounds of machine.
No surprise then that the TT RS’s 2:58.5 claims the Lightning Lap record for a car that mounts its engine east–west between the front wheels. It is the first such vehicle to break the three-minute threshold, and it lords a 5.4-second margin over its closest competitors, the Ford Focus RS and Honda Civic Type R.
All that firepower isn’t enough to outrun the TT’s humble roots, though. Based on the Volkswagen Group’s MQB architecture that also underpins the VW Atlas, Golf, and Jetta, the TT RS rides the front Pirellis hard. It carries 60.6 percent of its mass on the nose, and the all-wheel-drive system favors the front axle. These traits conspire to make the TT RS an unapologetic purveyor of understeer on power. As such, it demands patience well past the apex. You carry maintenance throttle longer, waiting for the front tires’ steering duties to abate before they can manage meaningful acceleration.
This nose-first attitude also means the TT RS is nonthreatening in everything it does. We used that security to average higher speeds than the 718 Cayman GTS’s through VIR’s two squiggly sections, the Climbing Esses and the infield. But those advantages are fleeting. The Audi exits these sections at significantly slower speeds than the Porsche, walking out of the esses at 104.4 mph compared with the Cayman’s 111.8. The slight edge in butt-clenching transitions evaporates as the slow exits compound on subsequent straights. Audi’s TT RS is a remarkable performer, but not so remarkable that it can escape the limits of its architecture.
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