Another year, another attempt by a high-performance Audi to rid itself of that reputation. You know, the one that holds that these cars are straight-line machines only, great at gathering pace, less great at changing direction. These, then, are not cars for drivers, but cars for those who wish to be seen to be drivers, which is absolutely not the same thing.
Oddly enough, it is a reputation increasingly undeserved these days. I’m not saying that modern fast Audis have become oversteering wunderwagens, all opposite lock and smoke-filled wheel arches – anything but, indeed – but those I have driven of late have been far better balanced machines than their forbears. But reputations are as slow in the spending as they are swift in the earning: there are people who to this day buy Porsche 911s with four-wheel drive because somewhere deep inside their brains, something tells them that if left to their own devices these cars will still take you on a magical mystery tour through the field on the other side of the hedge of your nearest wet roundabout. Truth is that, if driven with even a modicum of common sense, they never did.