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"The R8 GT represents the pinnacle of Audi street car performance. As such, it&amp;#039;s a rare bird, with a total production volume of just 333 units worldwide. Not only has the output of the already potent 5.2-liter V-10 engine been increased by 35 bhp (via engine electronics), but there&amp;#039;s now less mass to move, thanks to a comprehensive weight-savings program that shaves a laudable 265 lb. off a standard R8 5.2 FSI. What&amp;#039;s more impressive is the GT even weighs less than the V-8 R8, by 65 lb.! A long list of component mass reductions, plus lighter-weight dry carbon fiber used throughout the car, makes this possible. The most significant savings come from a carbon decklid, lighter battery, and a thinner hood and windshield.        2012 Audi R8 GT    Aerodynamics has also been vastly improved with a front splitter flanked by dive planes, as well as a fixed rear wing and a carbon diffuser. This makes for double the downforce in front and six times as much in back, all without increasing drag\u2014 hard claims to swallow if they weren&amp;#039;t coming from Audi.   The sole transmission of the R8 GT is Audi&amp;#039;s automated single-clutch R tronic gearbox. While this 6-speed doesn&amp;#039;t quite offer the quickness of the newer dual-clutch boxes, measures have been taken to enhance the shift speed. Lightened transmission counterbalancers reduce rotational inertia, which allows the new computer to command faster and harder shifts that deliver a positive punch with each pull of a steering wheel paddle.   Rounding out the performance treatment are optional 15.0-in. carbon-ceramic brakes up front, 14.0-in. discs in the rear, that transfer stopping force to the ultra sticky Pirelli P Zero Corsa rubber, providing about as much grip as you can expect from fully treaded DOT street tires.        2012 Audi R8 GT    The development of the Audi R8 Grand-Am involved more than a new roll of vinyl wrap and a set of decals, so let&amp;#039;s step back to where the paths of the street and race car diverge. From the body in white, everything aft of the rear-wheel centerline and ahead of the front-wheel centerline is lopped off. In their place, new clips are attached to form the basis of the race car. This affects the suspension pick-up points, the attachment points for the front splitter, and there&amp;#039;s even a new center-mounted radiator where the trunk used to be. Many stock suspension components are retained, including the uprights and most of the wishbones, but they have been modified to use spherical bearings.   From this point, the LMS and Grand-Am cars part ways. To comply with Grand-Am rules, Quattro GmbH needed to develop an all-new steel rollcage, which bolts to the R8&amp;#039;s aluminum chassis. Anti-intrusion bars behind the windshield are added safety measures, while ABS and traction control systems are disabled but remain installed because of their integral role in the system electronics. The more restrictive Grand-Am aerodynamic package doesn&amp;#039;t allow the use of front dive planes (even the GT has these!), plus it requires blocker panels for the rear diffuser and specifies a significantly shorter maximum front-splitter length (approximately 1.5 in.). What&amp;#039;s more, the rear wing has a width of 60 in., a full 4.7 in. narrower than FIA specification.        Audi R8 Grand-Am    In initial wind-tunnel testing, the R8 Grand-Am made only about 20\u201330 percent of the original downforce generated by the LMS car. This has required a retuning of the Bilstein dampers and the use of softer Eibach springs in the front.   With regard to powertrains, the direct-injected 5.2-liter V-10 is essentially race-ready, but teams are required to run 42-mm restrictors that dial power levels back to about 480 bhp. The production transmission is swapped out for a proper competition box, a pneumatically actuated 6-speed sequential that&amp;#039;s controlled via steering-wheel-mounted paddles like the GT road car&amp;#039;s. Down heavily on power but weighing an estimated 565 lb. less than the road car, would the R8 Grand-Am be able to uphold the winning streak for Team Race Car?        Audi R8 Grand-Am    Having not previously driven an R8 in GT or Grand-Am trim, Smith had his work cut out for him. Starting off in the Grand-Am car, Smith takes a few laps to get the Continental slicks up to temp, but then he cracks off a quick lap time of 1 minute 12.56 sec. Stepping out of the car, he reports: &amp;quot;As it sits now, the car is pretty neutral. It&amp;#039;s a very comfortable car and a very raceable car, but I would think compared to other cars in the class, it could probably use some tuning. The fly-by-wire throttle is a microswitch, so you need to get used to the feel. But once you have that figured out, it&amp;#039;s very responsive. Even with the limited time I&amp;#039;ve had in it, I can definitely feel the lineage between this and the LMP R8s I&amp;#039;ve driven. They&amp;#039;re both highly sensitive machines but very well mannered and linear in everything they do.&amp;quot;        Audi R8 Grand-Am &amp;amp;amp; 2012 Audi R8 GT    With rain clouds quickly approaching, it was now the R8 GT&amp;#039;s hour to shine and win one back for the street cars. Belted in, Smith quickly tears off for his hot laps and returns just as the first few rain droplets arrive. &amp;quot;Compared to the race car, this is a different animal, but I think it could be as quick, if not quicker, in a straight line. And the a/c works way better than the race car&amp;#039;s...I should mention I only used it on the cooldown lap.&amp;quot; A quick look at our data shows that while the GT is fast, it&amp;#039;s still a hair slower down the straights than the Grand-Am R8, which bests it by over 10 mph at times. However, the speed slope during braking shows the GT having a small advantage, which confirms Smith&amp;#039;s observations: &amp;quot;Braking-wise, the GT is really, really positive\u2014it slows down in a hurry with those big carbon-ceramic brakes.&amp;quot;        Audi R8 Grand-Am &amp;amp;amp; 2012 Audi R8 GT    Regarding the GT&amp;#039;s balance, Smith unsurprisingly found the car to be less neutral than the race car. &amp;quot;Yeah, it understeers a bit more, but it&amp;#039;s a street car so it&amp;#039;s kind of designed into it, which means you have to adjust your driving style to suit. I&amp;#039;m braking a little differently and a little earlier and letting the car roll through, because it&amp;#039;s easy to abuse the front tires and make that understeer worse if you start trying to overdrive it. The Pirellis are really good and very consistent. Through the prolonged corners, if you roll on the throttle nice and smooth, they can handle a lot.&amp;quot;   After getting out of the GT, Smith added, &amp;quot;I actually started using the same shift points, and the same gears I was using in the race car, and it was virtually identical. The software isn&amp;#039;t quite as aggressive as in the race car, of course, so it doesn&amp;#039;t jar you back in the seat. But it&amp;#039;s still crisp, smooth, and like everything else in this R8 GT, it feels very finished and precise.&amp;quot;        2012 Audi R8 GT    Great moments are had when any underdog triumphs, but sadly this was not one of those moments. As impressive as the GT was, the Grand-Am car was dominant, 6.26 sec. quicker than the GT&amp;#039;s best time of 1 minute 18.82 sec. On the bright side, that&amp;#039;s the narrowest performance gap we&amp;#039;ve seen thus far in our road versus track comparisons.   At the dawn of this century, Audi Motorsport engineered a race car designed for endurance competition. It was a machine that saw unprecedented success in the Le Mans Prototype racing class through superb balance, efficiency and steadfast reliability. The legacy of that R8 race car played a major part in the development of the company&amp;#039;s first exotic road car in 2007.        2012 Audi R8 GT    With Audi&amp;#039;s signature LED-lined front end, the mid-engine R8 road car was, and still is, a sight to behold. It achieves classic Teutonic understatement with sharp, clean lines and a relatively neutral color palette, while turning heads with its striking accents and finer details\u2014such as the &amp;quot;side blade&amp;quot; intake vents, beautifully gated shifter and engine compartment illuminated under glass.   While the road-legal R8 is a far cry from the monster with the open-cockpit and twin-turbo V-8 engine that devours kilometers of Mulsanne straight without chewing, there is lineage between the two\u2014like Audi&amp;#039;s race-derived FSI direct-injection technology\u2014as well as fundamental character similarities that wouldn&amp;#039;t be as obvious unless you&amp;#039;ve spoken to someone like Doug Smith who&amp;#039;s spent time in both.        Audi R8 Grand-Am    As a regular race driver for Rogers Motorsport, Smith has campaigned a couple original Audi R8 LMP cars in a number of historic race series. Upon finishing his hot laps in the most pedestrian version of the R8\u2014replete with 4.2 naturally aspirated liters, 430 bhp, Quattro all-wheel drive and a gated 6-speed manual shifter\u2014Smith had this initial impression: &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a torque monster,&amp;quot; referencing a 316 lb.-ft. torque peak that begins at 4500 rpm, 2000 rpm sooner than in the V-10 engine. &amp;quot;If you wanted to, you could almost drive a whole lap in 4th gear and it just pulls strong the whole time. It&amp;#039;s not as peaky as the V-10 R8, but it&amp;#039;s easier to drive because it&amp;#039;s got such a wide power-band and is not overly torquey at the same time.&amp;quot;        Audi R8 Grand-Am    With up to a 30:70 torque distribution (default is 15:85) front to rear, the R8&amp;#039;s Quattro system provides nearly all the safety benefits of all-wheel drive without any of the fun-smothering downsides. In short, you can still coax this thing to oversteer when you want, as well as dial it out when you don&amp;#039;t. &amp;quot;Balance-wise it&amp;#039;s surefooted,&amp;quot; Smith continues. &amp;quot;It goes everywhere you want it to; just think and it does it. It&amp;#039;s lighter [than the V-10] so it&amp;#039;s more responsive in the corners and you can just pour the throttle on so much earlier.&amp;quot; Although the V-8 car&amp;#039;s outright lap time is the slowest of the group, there&amp;#039;s truth to Smith&amp;#039;s comments, which can be seen when studying a lot of midcorner and exit speeds on the track. What added to this confidence is the fact that the V-8 was still equipped with the steel brake rotors. Smith explains: &amp;quot;The braking is still really strong with the steel rotors, and I feel like I have a little more sensitivity particularly in the slower-speed corners compared to the ceramic discs, although those are great especially on the high-speed stuff. Regarding the modulation characteristics, I needed to be extra cautious with the carbon brake cars, because I found it was easier to over-slow them. With this V-8 car, you can trail the brake in, and it was easy to pick just the right amount. It gives really good feedback.&amp;quot;        Audi R8 Grand-Am    While we didn&amp;#039;t lap the V-8 Spyder for time, we did fling it around for subjective purposes. The effect of the 255 lb. of added weight\u2014 partially mitigated through the use of carbon for the rear quarter panels and folding soft-top cover\u2014along with the subtle loss of rigidity adds a hint of softness and understeer in quick transitions like the slalom. But that&amp;#039;s a small price to pay\u2014if you&amp;#039;re already willing to pay the price premium of $12,800\u2014for a stunning car that will bring sun to scalp in 19 seconds flat, at speeds up to 31 mph.   Out of all the road-going R8 variants, Smith and all R&amp;amp;amp;T editors present during the test enjoyed the V-8 car the most. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s just a little more nimble because of its lower weight,&amp;quot; Smith sums up, &amp;quot;and I didn&amp;#039;t feel like I was fighting it or struggling as much to stay in the seat. And even if you goof a little bit, well, you can just put the power down and it seems to sort things out.&amp;quot; When I asked Smith what he liked best about driving the R8 LMP race car, he kept circling back to its balance. Clearly, Audi nailed that here on their first attempt.        2012 Audi R8 GT   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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