Audi RS3 Sportback review

Also, that RS3 I tested on circuit boiled its brake fluid and left me with about a third of the retardation I’d been expecting as I lunged into a tight hairpin at the end of a quick straight. If Frank Stippler and the Nordschleife won’t do serious harm to a man’s laundry bill, terminal brake fade will. In all honesty, I thought the car was pretty hopeless.

Two and a half years later, Audi tacitly admitted as much itself as it hastily facelifted the car and gave it more power. More importantly, it also removed a good deal of weight from its nose and made further changes to the four-wheel drive system, all in an effort to make it more engaging to drive. On the international media launch in Oman I found a much improved car that would, on the country’s bone-dry but weirdly slippery mountain roads, oversteer under power through and away from second-gear corners.

But once again, a low-grip road surface flattered to deceive. On familiar roads back at home, the 2017 RS3 was only a little more playful than the previous one. It seems to me that Audi Sport’s engineers and development drivers have spent the last seven or eight years doing their best to make the RS3 a rewarding driver’s car, but for reasons beyond their control – perhaps because the extra budget for a more trick four-wheel drive system wouldn’t be signed off by the suits upstairs – were never able to pull it off.

Well, that might now have changed. There is an all-new RS3 and among a suite of upgrades is a completely revised four-wheel drive system, one that doesn’t use a conventional differential in the rear axle but a pair of multi-disc clutch packs. These enable torque to be distributed with far more precision across the rear wheels, while also sending more drive to the outside rear corner on the way out of a bend. In theory it will oversteer more willingly, which isn’t particularly important, but it should also feel far more agile and adjustable when driven hard, which is.

Audi Sport made an incremental improvement in 2014 and another in 2017, but in 2021 it might just have taken an enormous stride forwards. Is this latest model the superhatch Neckarsulm wanted to build all along?

Styling is subjective, but to my eyes this RS3 is nothing like as handsome as the subtly muscular one it replaces. It’s gone all busy and fussy, and the enormous black grille surround makes it look like a basking shark at mealtime. Nor am I blown away by the quality of the interior, which would be fine for a £30,000 hatchback but in a car costing more than £50,000 (and worryingly close to £70,000 after options, as in the case of the test car I drove) the materials just aren’t up to scratch. At least the seating position is pretty good and the chairs themselves brilliantly comfortable.

The familiar five-pot turbo engine remains, though with 395bhp it has no more power than before. Torque rises a little to 369lb ft and those figures are available across a wider rev band now. There probably isn’t an engine out there that sounds better in a post-WLTP world than it did before, but when you select RS mode at idle in this car and hear its offbeat warble step up several decibels in volume and the vibrations tumble a few frequencies – enough that you feel like your skull is being drilled into – you forget all about gasoline particulate filters.

It needs 3000rpm before it really gets going, but after that point the 2.5-litre engine is strong, responsive and energetic through to the redline. And it always sounds so much more interesting than a 2-litre four-cylinder, the sort you’ll find in every other comparable car. Meanwhile, the dual-clutch gearbox is plenty smooth enough in normal driving and snappy when you take control yourself.

RS3s have often had lumpy, busy rides, the sort that would irritate you on a daily basis. This one doesn’t, at least not with the optional adaptive dampers, which cost £960. With them fitted this car is as comfortable and relaxing in normal driving as it’s reasonable to expect a near 400bhp performance car to be. Every time you clattered over a pothole or a broken patch of asphalt and the dampers swatted away the intrusion rather than punching it through to the cabin, you’d be glad you spent the extra.

And you’d be glad for the extra degree of camber at the front wheels every time you turned into a corner, too, for this RS3 now darts for an apex with an urgency earlier versions would’ve thought erratic. I can imagine them tutting disapprovingly as they sail on by an apex. The steering is pretty numb but there’s a sharpness and response to it now, making the whole car feel lighter and keener. And what’s this? On cold rear tyres the back of the car is sweeping around even on turn in, helping to keep the nose pinned to its line.

The rear tyres warm up quickly and soon that moment of off-throttle oversteer is gone, but the whole time you feel how much better balanced this RS3 is than the last. At corner exit it’s better still, for you apply the power early and actually sense it being fed to the outside rear corner where it drives the car through the final phase of the corner with a delicious positivity. There it is! The agility and poise the RS3 has been crying out for since day one.

Apply the power firmly and early enough and the car will actually slide in second gear, just enough that you have to unwind the steering lock a bit earlier than you would otherwise. Finally the RS3’s four-wheel drive system does more than simply lend it masses of traction. It has a drift mode now – Audi calls it Torque Rear – but I never felt the need to bother with it.

To reiterate, it isn’t oversteer that makes this RS3 far and away the most enjoyable of the lot, but its sweeter balance and that window of adjustability. Like earlier versions it remains tremendously grippy and secure in poor weather, but it’s now more comfortable than before and altogether more entertaining to drive.

On that latter point, you’d honestly have more outright fun in a Honda Civic Type R or Ford Focus ST. But the new RS3 combines everyday comfort, wet-weather mastery and genuine B-road thrills in a way no other hot hatch on sale today can quite match. It’s just a shame that once you’ve ticked a handful of boxes on the options sheet you’ll find yourself looking – and blinking, disbelievingly – at a sixty-something grand bill.

Audi RS3 Sportback

Engine: 2490cc, 5-cyl, turbo
Transmission: 7-speed dual-clutch, 4WD
Power: 395bhp @ 5600-7000rpm
Torque: 369lb ft @ 2250-5600rpm
Weight: 1570kg (DIN)

Power-to-weight: 252bhp/tonne
0-62mph: 3.8 seconds
Top speed: 155mph (174mph and 180mph optional)
Price: £51,770

Ti rating: 8/10