Mat Watson and his team from ‘Carwow’ brought in two hot German cars for a drag race. One’s the Audi RS3, and the other a BMW M3 Competition. The Audi RS3, in its reinvigorated avatar, is an absolute beast and punches well above its weight. It makes a lot less power than the BMW M3 Competition, but managed to keep up well in these races, especially the drag races. Can the Audi RS3 be considered as the hottest entry-level performance car today?
That’s A Difference Of Over 100 Horsepower
It’s Closer Than Expected
Although both the cars have launch controls, Mat noted that the one of the BMW is a lot more sophisticated and needs precision to be used successfully. The Audi’s, on the other hand, is much better, and could play a difference in the result. The RS3, as expected, had a much better launch and flew past the M3. The latter started reeling the Audi in, it was a little too late as the RS3 won by a not-so-big margin.
The second race started the same way, but the BMW did better to get closer to it. It looked like the M3 will get past it, but replays showed that the RS3 won just by the nose! This was as close as a race can get. Since the BMW was getting better, they decided to give it another shot.
The BMW’s launch was much better this time, and even though the Audi leaped forward first, the M3 didn’t let it get away too far. Within a few seconds, it edged ahead of the RS3 to score a win and open the scoreboard. The hosts didn’t warm up the tires before the race, but by the third race, they had warmed up enough. That surely played a big role in the result. The BMW M3 Competition took 11.8 seconds to complete the quarter-mile distance in this run, whereas the Audi RS3 took 12 seconds.
They moved on to roll races from here, with the first one from 50 mph. The cars were in their respective comfort settings and automatic mode for the gearbox. The kickdown was much better for the BMW here and it took the lead right away. There was no chance the Audi could catch up with it, thus giving us a verdict of this half-mile race right at the kickdown.
To even-out things a little bit, they decided to race again from 35 mph. The cars were engaged in their sportiest settings with manual mode for the gearbox. But, the BMW was to start from the third gear and the Audi from the second. This gave the RS3 some advantage as it took the lead at kickdown. But, at about 80 mph, the M3 went past it to score yet another win.
The final round was a brake test from 100 mph. The heavier BMW managed to stop in a shorter distance to win this round as well. Quite an interesting, competitive series of races and tests, considering the Audi RS3 makes over 100 horses less than the M3. Swipe up to watch the video and share your thoughts with us in the comments section.