• Very focussed interior
• Material quality good…
• …But not great for a £130k + car

How is the quality and layout?

The layout is masterful. A lack of infotainment screen (more below) makes it seem like there’s more room than there is and the heating controls are physical rather than buried in a sub menu on a screen. This is old-school in a very, very good way.

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Everything you touch has a familiar Audi feeling of solidity and heft to it. There are many buttons dotted around the interior, which can be a bit fiddly but they all give weighty feedback and feel like they were made to last. The only problem is that it all looks broadly like any other Audi – good for a £40,000 SUV, but on a £130,000 supercar? A bit bland.

One shining example of this is with the gear selector paddles, located behind the steering wheel. Base model cars just get small, plastic shifters. They feel cheap and aren’t rewarding to use.

Infotainment and tech

We should probably mention the lack of infotainment here. Instead of having a massive screen above the heating controls like most cars, everything is controlled by Audi’s Virtual Cockpit 12.3-inch instrument cluster, behind the steering wheel.

It keeps your eyes on the road and creates a really focussed and fuss-free interior. It all works smoothly and even complex sat-nav instructions can be recreated to sit alongside traditional bits of information like speed and rpm.

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But as there’s no touchscreen, things can become a bit of a pain once you need to do anything out of the ordinary. Everything is controlled with a thumb wheel on the steering wheel and you can only go up and down, not left and right. This means cycling through menus until you stumble upon the right one. 

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are well integrated, but there’s no wireless capability. During our testing the voice recognition software only worked once out of every five attempts.

The R8’s tech is up-to-date, but has been shoehorned in a manner that makes it feel a bit old and creaky even when compared with cars a quarter of the price.

Comfort

• Racecar-like seating position
• Firm, supportive seats
• Not that much choice

As you’d imagine, the seating position is low, but not as low as other supercars. Tall drivers still sit with a line of sight well above the steering wheel in the lowest seat position, which is a real boon for visibility. The seats are brilliant. They’re firm and supportive, but still forgiving enough to handle long distance work. Huge levels of adjustment too, ensuring most people will be able to get comfortable despite the car’s low height.

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There were only two seat styles to choose from. The standard is pretty sporty, but the optional bucket seat is firmer and offers more lateral support. The GT seats are very steeply bolstered and quite narrow, meaning that although they do serve well to keep you in place at speed, around town they can be quite difficult to get comfortable in. For larger drivers, this may ring especially true.

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There’s a bit of wind noise at motorway speeds – especially towards the rear of the door windows – but it’s quickly drowned out by the engine if you put your foot down.