The article was originally produced on February 6, 2020, some facts and prices may have changed since then.

Comfort like a luxury loaf and fast as lightning. We have test driven the latest addition to the Audi RS family: the RS Q8.

The main European car manufacturers have been good at competing with each other for both the number of horsepower produced and who is the fastest around the Nürburgring. Now Audi has stolen the crown from Alfa Romeo in the fastest SUV category at the Ringen. Before the RS Q8, it was the Alfa Romeo Stelvio Quadrofoglio that had a time of 7.51:70. The new time set on an initially cold and rainy day on September 13 was 7.42:25. As one of two Swedish media, we had the exclusive opportunity to get a good feel for the RS Q8 at the international test drive in Tenerife.

The heart is a musty four-liter V8 with twin turbochargers – basically the same engine as in the Lamborghini Urus

Getting to Tenerife takes time. After boarding early in the morning and a long flight, we arrived on the island in the afternoon. A bus ride to the hotel and a quick briefing, it was time to jump into the car. In order to get as much as possible out of the test drive, my colleague from Teknikens Värld and I invited Victor Underberg, who is Head of Vehicle Dynamics at Audi Sport. With Mr. Underberg in the back seat, we were able to get unique inside information about why the car behaved in a certain way and how they thought when they wanted to achieve the result that we could now feel on the challenging roads around the Teide volcano. 

The heart of the RS Q8 is a powerful four-liter V8 with twin turbochargers. It is basically the same engine that is in the Lamborghini Urus, but with a slightly milder degree of tuning. The Italian sibling is 50 horses and has 50 Newton meters more in twist, but Audi has managed to make the RS Q8 an effective corner-whacker on the racetrack.

Engine power is distributed to all four wheels via an eight-speed automatic transmission that does the job excellently. In Audi Drive Select, as usual, you can set a number of parameters for the car’s behavior. Among other things, engine mapping, gearbox, dampers, steering and the engine sound. But what you can also set is the four-wheel drive on the RS Q8. You then quickly access the various settings you have composed via two buttons on the steering wheel, RS1 and RS2.

The RS Q8 is also equipped with the four-wheel steering, which at low speeds can turn the rear wheels by five 5 degrees to make the turning circle smaller. At higher speeds, the wheels turn up to 1.5 degrees to help stabilize the car. Something that is completely new for Audi but which we have seen for a long time at BMW with its M buttons. To reach the hundred mark on the fully digital speedometer only 3.8 seconds are needed. The top speed is electronically adjusted and depending on which optional package you chose, it can vary between 250, 280 and 305 kilometers per hour.

The roads here in Tenerife are smoother than a freshly polished worktop

The roads here in Tenerife are smoother than a freshly polished countertop, so it’s hard to feel how the dampers work and take care of rough asphalt. Before the test drive, a good rain has washed down stones on the road and then we are not talking about pebbles but razor-sharp volcanic stones. Despite doing what I can to avoid them, we end up getting a flat tire on one of the tires. They’re massive dons. The brand new rims are specially designed for the RS Q8 and are a full 23 inches in size, the largest rim diameter ever offered. I detect the puncture quickly because the tire pressure warning immediately indicates that a tire is losing pressure.

Stopping the RS Q8 is also no problem because there are massive ceramic brakes that are hugged by red brake calipers. Audi’s assistance team is quickly on site with a replacement car so we can continue after a short break. When the road is clear of the sharp stones, I start to push the car and see what it can handle. With an engine of 600 horsepower and all the finesse to make it dynamic, you quickly forget that you are sitting in a large SUV of almost two and a half tons. It’s really impressive how fast the RS Q8 is!

Whether people will really drive their RS Q8 as hard as I did in Tenerife is a difficult question. Probably not. There are probably even fewer who will really take it to the Nürburgring and hug it out. But the fact that Audi still continues to enter this game is incredibly fun. 

As icing on the cake, they had brought both the RS Q8 with which they broke the record at the Nürburgring and Frank Stippler who was behind the wheel when the time was set. Frank has a past mainly in German motorsport and then almost exclusively as a factory driver for Audi. Among other things, he has won the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring in an R8 LMS. For a while he also drove in the STCC series here in Sweden as a teammate with Thed Björk. I had the pleasure of riding in the record car together with Frank.

The only thing that separates it from the normal cars is the fitted cage and racing seats. I consider myself a perfectly good driver who dares to drive over the limit of a normal driver. But when you sit in the car next to a driver like Frank Stippler, you quickly realize what an amateur you are. His control and speed are out of this world. How he finds the wall grip in the curves and dares to trust it is incredibly fascinating. 

As I mentioned, few owners are likely to really push the car the way Frank Stippler can. But regardless, you get a car that you will soon tire of. Because even in normal driving, this is a car to enjoy. It has all the equipment you can dream of and the comfort is truly world class. And quite honestly, just knowing that you are sitting in the fastest car is often enough to feel like a king behind the wheel.

Audi RS Q8 

Basic price	From SEK 1,319,500
Engine	4-liter V8 with twin turbo, 600 hp. Torque 800 Nm
Transmission	Front engine, 8-speed automatic transmission, four-wheel drive
Acceleration	0-100 in 3.8 seconds
Top speed	250/280/305 km/h (depending on options)
Fuel consumption mixed driving according to the manufacturer	1.21 l/mile
Weight	2,390 kg
Guarantee	New car 2 years, carriage damage 3 years, rust protection 12 years, paint 3 years
Web	www.audi.se