The Tesla Model S Plaid is certainly difficult to beat, but this 1,300 WHP Twin-Turbo Audi R8 is just the car to make that happen.
By now, pretty much everyone in the automotive enthusiast realm is well aware of the fact that the Tesla Model S Plaid is a dominant drag racer right out of the box. In fact, it’s the quickest-accelerating production car out there, one that can rocket to 60 mph in less than two seconds and run 9-second quarter-miles without breaking a sweat, but in all fairness, it does so in complete silence, which is one major qualm enthusiasts have with EVs in general. Regardless, there aren’t many road-going cars out there that can beat it at the drag strip, save for, say, a twin-turbo Audi R8.
In this new video from Drag Times, we get to see Brooks Weisblat – the owner of a Model S Plaid and all sorts of cool exotic cars – line up against a twin-turbo Audi R8 churning out around 1,300 horsepower at the wheels, or as much as 1,800 horsepower, depending on the fuel it’s running and the tune the driver chooses. On this particular day, the Plaid is running a set of lightweight wheels wrapped with pretty worn tires, but those are merely semantics for something that runs low 9s with the mere press of the pedal.
As one might expect, the Plaid rockets out to an early lead thanks to its instant torque and superior traction, but midway down the track, the R8 uses its copious amounts of power to simply blow right past it. The race actually looks closer than it was, however, once both get to peek at the time slips.
When the twin-turbo Audi R8 crossed the line, it did so in a mere 8.944 seconds at 161.61 mph, which handily beat the Plaid and its 9.357-second pass at 147.47 mph. It’s a pretty eyebrow-raising result no matter how you slice it, though we have seen this same Tesla run a 9.0 before. Perhaps on a fresh set of tires, this race might be much closer, but for now, we’ll just go ahead and enjoy this little victory – not only for Audi, but also for ICE vehicles in general.
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