You sit low and there is enough seat and steering adjustment to get a comfortable driving position in the R8 Spyder. The sports seats do wrap around you and provide good support when cornering, so you feel part of the car, but they also provide enough support and comfort to make the R8 Spyder a superb long-distance companion.

That flat-bottomed steering wheel not only looks good, but the relatively thin rim makes it a joy to use as well.

The controls and instruments feel more geared to the purpose of pure driving rather than luxury though, so it’s the speedometer and rev counter that dominate the main instrument panel. A screen that displays car info, sat nav and audio information is the main focus of the central dash however.

Opt for the manual car and the longest lasting impression comes from the gearstick. The top is finished in a knurled and machined effect while the shaft plunges straight into an open-slotted gate, also finished in aluminium. In a world of supercars with automatic-only boxes its very presence is reason enough to celerbate. The good news is even the automatic lever looks good, and there’s paddles behind the steering wheel.

Getting into the car with the roof in place takes some practice if you want to do it elegantly, but with the roof down you can swing in and drop down into the comfortable seats without a second thought.

Audi R8 Spyder comfort levels are actually very good – better than you might be expecting for such a car. Whether travelling at speed or trundling around town the R8 is a very comfortable place to be, so much so that it’s easy to understand why so many owners use them as daily transport.

Other touches that make life easy are heated seats – especially important for using your convertible during the colder months – steering wheel mounted controls, sat-nav and cruise control where fitted. Adjusting the heating controls is a little fiddly as you have to reach around the gear-stick and they’re set low, almost against the transmission tunnel.

On the move the electrically adjustable glass rear screen can be raised further to lessen wind turbulence with the roof lowered, making it relatively easy to hold a conversation with passengers at motorway speeds.

Roof fixed in place the R8 feels little different to the Coupe for cabin noise as well, and shrugs off poor weather conditions without complaint.