Why you've probably been driving the Audi TT RS wrong this whole time
My Audi TT RS coupe reveals its strong suit on a most unlikely road
It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally had a properly soul-stirring drive in the Audi TT RS – one that will be lodged in the memory banks for years to come and is primed to be recalled every time I drive along the stretch of road where it happened. The road where it happened came as something of a surprise too, as it was a long way from the type I would have predicted the RS would feel at its best on.
You see, up until that point I had been formulating a theory that the top TT was a car for big roads. It may have a relatively modest, hot hatch-size footprint, but so prodigious is the performance of its 394bhp five-cylinder engine, and so capably delivered is it by the car’s four-wheel-drive system, that you can easily slip into treating it as you might a car that’s a class, and therefore size, further up the range. The RS5 that I ran as a long-termer a few years ago inevitably springs to mind. For this reason you can feel like you should be seeking out roads where all that capability can be exploited to the full: comfortably wide ones, with big, sweeping corners and long-range visibility.
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But instead it was on a narrow, relentlessly twisting and not particularly fast stretch of Cumbrian tarmac that the TT intoxicated. Barely more than two cars wide at best, and often lined with stone walls or rock faces, the pinpoint accuracy with which this Audi can be placed was brought to the fore. So too was its willingness to change direction through the rapid-fire sequences of tight turns – a characteristic that fades in faster corners, where you need to consciously bring the Sport Differential into play to counteract a front end that’s increasingly reluctant to snap onto your chosen line.
Meanwhile, despite working mostly in its mid-range and almost entirely in second and third gear, the five-pot felt like it was relishing the challenge, throwing out brief gobs of turbocharged torque to provide near-instant bursts of acceleration, which in turn were briskly reversed with unerring confidence by the keenly responsive brakes (just cast-iron discs, by the way – no fancy ceramics here).
Perhaps, then, despite its far-reaching performance envelope, the TT RS is actually at its best when it’s not being fully extended. The quest is now on to find more tight and technical roads to see if it’s a trick the our long-termer can repeat.
| Mileage this month | 816 |
|---|---|
| Total mileage | 2626 |
| mpg this month | 28.8 |
| Costs | £0 |
| Price when new | £71,495 |
This story was first featured in evo issue 305.
