The problem with Audi RS5, WRC returns & Aston Martin Valhalla, with Henry Catchpole | Episode 44
The evo podcast
The problem with Audi RS5, WRC returns & Aston Martin Valhalla, with Henry Catchpole | Episode 44
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71:44
Brand
Pirelli
Pirelli makes tires. The speaker is basically saying the setup has premium tires, even though they’re talking about a bike.
Car
Audi Rs3
The Audi RS 3 is a small, sporty Audi made for strong acceleration and fun handling. In the podcast, it’s mentioned while they’re talking about different performance cars and how they compare.
Car
Audi RS5
Audi RS5 is the sporty, higher-performance version of the Audi A5. In this conversation, they’re using it as an example while talking about how weight changes how a car drives.
Concept
WRC
WRC is the World Rally Championship—major rally races around the world. They’re saying it’s coming back to the UK so fans can watch rallying live again.
Concept
read the road
“Read the road” means you’re constantly judging what the surface is like—where it’s slippery, bumpy, or changing. In rallying, that’s something you learn by experience, not just by watching videos.
Concept
Formula One
Formula One is the most famous kind of race car series in the world. It’s the one with the big teams and lots of TV coverage, and it’s often compared to other racing series that don’t get as much attention.
Concept
wet Grand Prix
A “wet Grand Prix” is a race held in rain, which dramatically changes grip and braking behavior. In motorsport terms, wet conditions can increase tire slip and make car control more driver-dependent, often leading to more variability in results.
Car
Yaris
The Toyota Yaris is a normal road car. The speaker is saying that even though it exists in rallying, it doesn’t really connect to the highest-level rally cars in a way that feels meaningful.
Part
head gasket
The head gasket is a seal inside the engine that keeps important fluids and gases from mixing. If it fails, the engine can overheat or run badly, and it usually means a costly fix.
Concept
Le Mans
Le Mans is a famous endurance race in France. The speaker is comparing rally trips to how people travel in groups to watch Le Mans.
Concept
onboard
“Onboard” means the camera is inside the car. You see what the driver sees, so it can feel more intense and fast.
Concept
rallying
Rallying is racing on special road sections (called stages) that are closed to normal traffic. Drivers have to handle lots of different grip levels and corners, not just go fast in a straight line.
Concept
stage
In rallying, a stage is a specific timed part of the route. Drivers are racing the clock on that section, and the layout (like roundabouts) changes how they have to drive.
Term
Downforce
Downforce is air pressure pushing the car down onto the track. More downforce usually means the tires grip better, so the car can go faster through corners.
Car
GT3 cars
GT3 cars are race cars built from regular production models, but modified to compete in a specific racing category. Because the rules are standardized, they tend to drive in a similar way and feel very “race car” on track.
Concept
street circuit
A street circuit is a race course made from regular city roads. It usually uses temporary barriers and can feel tighter and bumpier than a track built just for racing.
Term
donuts
Donuts are when a car spins in a tight circle, usually by sliding the tires. It’s fun to watch, but it can wear out tires quickly and stress the car.
Term
EV
EV means the car can run on electricity. The speaker is saying it’s easier to drive around when the car can use electric power instead of always using the engine.
Car
Aston Martin Valhalla
The Aston Martin Valhalla is a very special, high-performance Aston Martin supercar. The hosts are talking about how long it took for the car to finally be revealed.
Concept
Geneva Motor Show
The Geneva Motor Show is a big car event where automakers show off new cars to the world. Mentioning it usually means the Valhalla was revealed or teased in a major public moment.
Concept
specced it with stuff
“Specced” just means you order the car with lots of extra options you choose. On expensive cars, those options can add up fast and make the final price much higher.
Term
PHEV
PHEV means the car is a plug-in hybrid. You can charge it like an electric car, and it also has a gas engine for longer trips.
Brand
McLaren
McLaren is a company that makes very high-performance supercars. The speaker is saying the Aston Martin Valhalla has some of that McLaren-like feel and sound.
Term
4.0L V8
“4.0L V8” refers to a V-shaped eight-cylinder engine with a displacement of 4.0 liters. In this context, it’s the engine the speaker says has a crank/firing character that contributes to the McLaren-like sound.
Concept
track vs road tires
Road and track tires are built differently. Track tires usually grip more and work best when they get hot, so the car can feel very different even if everything else stays the same.
Term
dampers
Dampers are the parts that calm the car down after bumps. They help the wheels stay in contact with the road so the ride feels controlled instead of bouncy.
Concept
ride quality
Ride quality is how comfortable the car feels over rough roads. If the suspension soaks up bumps well, the ride feels smooth instead of jarring.
Term
exhaust valve
An exhaust valve is a small valve in the exhaust that can open or close. When it opens, the car usually sounds more aggressive; when it closes, it’s quieter.
Term
low rev limit
A low rev limit means the engine won’t spin as fast as some others. That can affect how strong it feels on track because you can’t use the highest RPM power band.
Concept
configurator
A configurator is the website tool where you pick your car options—like paint and trim—and see what the finished car would look like. It helps you experiment with different styles without guessing.
Term
chopped carbon finish
It’s a carbon-fiber style trim. Instead of one smooth pattern, it uses smaller pieces, so it looks more “chunky” or speckled.
Brand
Ferrari
Ferrari is an Italian brand famous for very fast, high-end sports cars. When people mention Ferrari, they usually mean a car that’s meant to feel special to drive and own.
Brand
Lamborghini
Lamborghini is another Italian supercar brand. People associate it with loud looks and big performance, and it’s usually instantly recognizable.
LIVE
RS5.
You'll get there in the end.
Just keep going around the numbers and kind of win.
Six, seven.
Six, seven.
Three, two, one.
Welcome, everyone. Welcome to episode 44 of the Evo podcast.
I'm joined on this lovely fine day.
It's not raining for once this year.
Henry Cachepal, Dickie Meadon.
Welcome both.
Thank you very much. How are you all?
Very good. Thank you.
All good.
All good. All been busy.
Always.
Always.
I think Henry's been busier than both of us.
So we're.
Oh, right. And bicycle years.
Because it was such a nice weather.
So it was first time in, you know,
give us a nice hand.
Well, which bike?
People are going to want to know now.
Waste, waste of a good afternoon.
The worst, couldn't come to a walk or play golf.
Oh, golf, golf, golf.
Close in the back of the car as well.
Specialised tarmac SL5 S-Works with SRAM Red.
So there we go.
E-Tap.
No idea what.
There you go.
Has Pirelli tires on it.
Right, E-Tap.
That sounds like something you get.
You go into a bar and ask for it.
How does that compare with a rally grifter?
If you want to add a bottle, you want an E-Tap.
Yeah.
Rally grifter, three-speed stemi-archer.
Very similar.
Very, very similar.
Thought so.
Yeah, it's all just smoke and mirrors, isn't it?
This cycling game.
I've got a friend to lie down on my road.
Jumping with my good word and jumping it is good.
And then when I've got to drink out of a hose pipe.
Exactly.
You'd never jump a grifter, though,
because they weighed about half a tonne.
Yeah.
Well, I've talked about weight.
Weight and weight.
What? What? Look at me, then.
You've been driving.
A couple of heavy weights, which we will get to.
Audi's RS3.
Oh, no, RS5.
RS5.
You'll get there any minute.
Just keep going up the numbers and kind of work.
Six, seven.
Six, seven.
Whee!
Wow!
What does that mean?
No, don't, don't.
Paul Sam's got editors.
It's the first thing we've said that he's understood
in three years when we said six, seven.
Yeah.
He is a print sun.
I listened to print sun and go out and he just looked at me
with a blank expression.
RS5, you've been driving.
I have been driving RS5.
And you've been driving Valhalla.
You've both been driving.
We have.
Captain Martin and Valhalla,
which the embargo lifted a couple of days ago
if you're listening to this in a timely fashion.
What should we start with, then?
What should we start with?
Well, it's sort of something.
Return of rally.
Yeah, something to worry about.
Whee!
Nice to hear that.
That's why Henry's here.
He wants to talk.
Yeah, let's start with that,
because that's actually very timely and quite exciting.
WRC is coming back to UK shores.
Coming back to Scotland.
Aberdeen, I believe.
It's, yeah, I don't think anybody,
it kind of came slightly out of left field
at the end of the safari rally.
I know they'd been talking about pitching for it,
hadn't they, for a while,
but it seemed like it was kind of sort of all,
they're not doing enough and it's not sort of,
we can't see it coming back for ages,
and then just suddenly, bang, there it is,
and next year as well, which is kind of...
It's quick, isn't it?
Yeah.
We hadn't really seen so, yeah, really good news.
Well, Aberdeen's got Granite City rally, haven't they,
based in Aberdeen, so I guess they've got
a network of stages immediately around Aberdeen,
but then I don't know how far into South,
into Scotland they're going.
Yeah, hasn't been, I don't think they've done much
about where it's going.
That'd be great.
It's exciting, isn't it?
We need, we as a country need,
was a nation need rallying, don't we?
I think it's a real shame when
you suddenly feel a bit left out,
and you do kind of disengage from it.
Oh, yeah.
And it's, I was doing somebody yesterday about
the fact that, you know,
we've got all the F1 stuff going on at the moment
about sort of people,
there's a lifting coast here,
there's a lot of battery management,
and the same in sort of, you know,
obviously to some extent it's kind of,
and actually rallying is generally hybrid,
you've gone back to exactly kind of what people want,
that you see somebody going down the stage.
Well, and it was a proper driving.
It was a proper old school safari rally as well,
wasn't it?
All the mudding, bits of the car flying off
the left front of the centre.
You've got to read the road,
it's not sort of, you know,
however much video stuff you watch,
it's not going to help you kind of,
you get to this piece of mud hole,
and yeah, and then,
I think that kind of,
that kind of footage,
I know we're all guilty of consuming stuff
in bite-sized chunks on Instagram,
or whatever, aren't we?
But even that,
the safari stuff was like,
holy shit, that's,
they can't have expected it to be quite that extreme,
because the cars were absolutely rooted,
weren't they, by the time they finished?
Because of the cars we've got now as well,
because they're kind of,
seeing a feature of a spec car,
underneath to some extent,
so it means they can't probably prepare them
quite the way they would have done in the past.
Well, it would have been a completely different car,
wouldn't it?
A spoke car, wouldn't it?
Just for safari,
and probably left there in bits,
because it couldn't do anything else.
Much heavier, I guess,
and more sturdy construction.
Yeah, and they're saying the WRC2,
or Rally2 cars,
were actually standing up to it all much better,
because they're a slightly tougher design,
in some respects.
Yeah, that Kenya footage looked,
well, it took you back,
it sounded like old fast,
but it took you back 20 years, didn't it?
Well, it looked like the shots
from the decline calendars, didn't it?
While coming towards you,
you just covered in mud,
just with the wipers going,
and at a weird angle,
just trying to drag it out the nuts and stuff.
Yeah, that looks a bit tastler.
It's really good, so.
But yeah, Scotland's great.
It's really, really good.
It's really exciting, isn't it?
And I think that it should give our,
well, United Kingdom drivers a boost, shouldn't it?
Because there's more focus on the sport,
and there's a greater incentive
to try and progress,
and responses to engage,
and it's a good thing.
Yeah, we've got a lot of Brits in WRC,
sort of, at the moment.
Yeah, but they're hidden, aren't they?
Yeah.
Because it doesn't come here.
You do need, it's a bit like with WEC as well,
isn't it, with Mike Conway in Toyota.
Yeah.
Endlessly winning titles, Anthony Davison,
the ex-wet world champion.
But it's something that happens somewhere else, isn't it?
Yeah.
It feels very remote.
From Nick Tandy with winning everything,
and you have to be an endurance racing geek
to appreciate just what achievement it is.
And it's the same with Elfin Evans,
and the rest is that what they're achieving in WRC is,
if it doesn't happen on your shores,
you're kind of not aware of it.
And if you think of the motorsport,
how rich motorsport is in the UK,
how much we've got,
it's actually only Formula One that gets all,
but all the teams,
and we talk about motorsport,
valley and over in Oxfordshire and stuff.
But they're not just F1 teams.
There's world endurance teams.
There's a lot of the Radical engineering is done in the UK,
or by specialists in the UK.
The drivers, the loads of Bricks in the team.
There's loads of Radical stuff as well as...
But yeah, because it's not here,
unless you really follow it.
So if they said anything about the likely route,
or just that it's...
I mean, is it confirmed, 100% confirmed?
Yeah, it seems to be all over the WRC.
So it's all rubber stamped.
It's all rubber stamped.
Yeah, DR and Malcolm, they were outside HQ
and sort of celebrating it, which is great.
Any idea when in the calendar,
because obviously traditionally it was always
pretty much the last round of the year,
which made it better,
because the weather was unpredictable.
Well, yeah, it'd be great if it wasn't November, wasn't it?
Yeah.
But I'm wondering if Aberdeen in November could be...
I'd probably...
That'd be great.
I think they need extreme...
I know they've got extremes of weather
with some of the Middle Eastern rounds
and Scandinavian rounds,
but I think the...
If it could show such extremes of terrain and weather...
It's what everybody wants, isn't it?
It's what you think of and kind of...
Yeah, if you do it in the summer, it'd just be a bit...
It's like a wet Grand Prix, isn't it?
And then it allows different drivers to shine
or just the random jeopardy of rallying
sort of takes over, doesn't it?
Yeah, exactly.
I was just looking what wasn't being read,
it wasn't ignoring me.
You were ordering your weekly shot, weren't you, Steve?
Yeah, basically,
ordering some more medication for the latest injury.
WRC coming back,
but there's still no wet ground in the UK.
ELMS is returning to Silverstone,
but again, it's just going back to that point,
doesn't it?
It feels like missing a trick really.
You've got Silverstone sat there with...
It has one week a year of a big, blue-rivened event.
I know there's touring cars and there's...
It's still called Silverstone Festival
or Silverstone Classic or Carfest
or whatever it's called now.
Yeah, it's Carfest this year, I think, but...
But you feel how...
This is motorsport UK,
so obviously with the world of politics
of interfering with motorsport,
of where rounds go and where races and events are,
if they manage to get a WRC round
back to the UK,
can they get a wet ground back to Silverstone,
which would be fantastic.
You hope David Richards could flex
some of his influence and enthusiasm,
wouldn't you?
I'm sure that's worked with the rally stuff,
but for motorsport UK to have
some sort of push towards your lobbying for rounds.
I don't know.
It generally comes down to money, doesn't it?
Yes, it comes down to money,
and he's prepared to support it
to put it on because these things
aren't achieved to put on.
It's not...
There's manufacturers in all of these events,
but they don't have bottomless pits of cash
to pay for the TV, to pay for the infrastructure.
They just want rallying to get stronger, generally, don't they?
There's the cars are cool,
but there aren't enough of them in the top level.
I think James...
It doesn't really, again, haven't occurred to me
because I haven't been to watch a rally for a long time,
but when James Taylor,
one of our colleagues, went to Monte Carlo,
he was quite shocked because you're there
watching the stage, and then eight or nine
of the top-tier cars go through,
and then, oh, that's...
That's it.
That's it, and then you've got the sort of
secondary categories go through,
which are still cool, but it's not really
what you go there for, is it?
I don't know how they address that.
No, I mean, then the new set of regulations
coming out is what that's aimed at,
sort of bringing more manufacturers in
because it's not in a great state at all.
You've kind of got...
Sorry, the new regs got a price cap
or a budget cap on them,
because that's always going to be the...
But the cars get so complex,
only a manufacturer's team can afford to run them,
so you don't get that trickle down.
I think that's why they stripped the hybrid out,
or something else, to reduce the complexity and cost.
Exactly, and it was because that was a part
you had to buy in, you know, it was a separate...
Yeah, plug and play, and it wasn't really
renewable enough, and drivers getting annoyed
because it was out of their hands
that this thing they had no control over
was letting them down.
So, yeah, there's been a lot of
back and forth about what
happens now in terms of
just making the cars simpler,
because that's what, seemingly, everybody wants.
Standing at the side of the stage,
whether it's one of the Rally 1 cars
that goes past, or one of the Rally 2 cars,
if it's filled around two cars,
you don't really notice that much of a difference.
No, it's the driver.
It's the people who drive the wheels off it, then.
Yeah, you're as invested in the driver
as you are in the car, I think, aren't you?
Exactly.
And if all the cars are the same,
they're all going to look equal-pace, aren't they?
It's the same as if you were at an endurance race.
If they're filled with L and P1 cars,
they all look the same,
and they sound the same, and they're all going...
But if they're all P2 cars, they're still going to look...
Or GT cars.
GT cars at the Nurburgring still look spectacular,
isn't it?
Just need that.
You don't want that big.
Here's Rally 1, and then here's the rest,
because the transition is too big, isn't it?
I wonder if the problem with rallying is there...
It's going to sound like an old dinosaur here,
but there is no relevance,
even with a Yaris,
there is absolutely no relevance to a road product
when, actually,
they are the only sort of
world-level motorsport category
that are road-legal cars, aren't they?
Which, again, you bring it back to rally 2,
while they're based on, fundamentally, a road car.
It should be something...
But the road car, there isn't...
There isn't a derivative of a road car
that you can pin on it being the same as a rally 2 car.
There is a Fabia 130.
Well, I suppose the Yaris is the closest thing.
Big, lumpy, small crossovers,
because they're about the only models
that people make now.
I just remember...
A bit like touring cars, I suppose,
but I can remember way back when,
the sort of performance car days,
and having an impressive turbo long-term test car,
and driving up and following the rally,
and that's when it was England, Wales,
and Scotland.
On the M6, in your green, impressed with its PC stickers,
we were in a higher fit at Punto,
because our XR4, I blew its head gasket.
So you had to go higher at Punto
for four of us to drive around.
But that's what you used.
It was the sort of winter equivalent
of everyone driving out to Le Mans, wasn't it?
I think the rally was something you could either
really commit to it and try and chase the whole thing,
or you'd just devote a couple of days
and head out into the wilds of Wales or...
But it was, wasn't it?
There was like a convoy of...
You had porters and lotuses and Ferraris
going to Le Mans in the summer,
and then you had all the Escort Cosworths,
Safar Cosworths in Pretzers,
someone who'd imported...
Those that had imported Evo 3s and 4s,
all going up the M6 to Chester.
Yeah, you would see you could spot
people a mile off, couldn't you?
And the whole, I hate getting up in the morning,
but I used to love the early start,
try and find your way to the sort of stage entry,
and then walk in, get far enough in
before the marshal started telling you to,
and then you'd wait, and then you'd hear a car,
and then it was this...
It's a proper mini adventure, isn't it?
Such an evocative thing to do.
Well, we used to...
Before we had the luxury of taking someone's Dad's XR4,
a 4x4 bike, I can't believe I've read it anyway,
blew up, left us stranded in Scotland.
It's the key factor.
Yeah, that's why I do so well.
We used to have a diesel engine,
as they were, a Series 3 Defender,
with a canvas back,
tow a caravan,
parked in the car park in Chester,
next to the river,
and that would be our base for the week,
and then follow it all the way up to Kilda,
all the way through Wales.
Blimey.
Yeah, it was horrific.
That's committed.
Never do it again.
Yeah, we did it for three years.
Then I convinced them,
actually, maybe we should stay in the hotel.
That's what travel lodges were invented for.
Yeah.
But yeah, that was the winter equivalent of Le Mans.
But it was, I remember, you know,
Sunday morning in Chester High Street,
with the start,
all the cars coming over the ramps.
It was just...
Yeah.
There was nothing like it,
and you wanted to get there early,
so you could get in front of the barriers,
and then, yeah, you would drive to the stage,
and you'd go,
well, that's the stage entrance,
but we don't want to be at the stage entrance.
Where's the best bit to be?
How far along do you need to drive?
Maybe go into the end,
and walk in from the other end of the stage.
And then you wanted to go,
which stage are you going to leapfrog
to then get to the next stage,
and where do you want to be?
It's a great thing to do.
It's a really good thing to do.
I did Rally Castle Nune a couple of years ago
with Tosun,
and been to Rally for decades.
And it was just great to...
I think until you see the cars
stood at the side of the road,
you under-appreciate how fast the cars are,
and how the drivers,
what they're threading those cars at such speed,
and that was obviously on tarmac stage as well.
It was spectacular.
But I do think Rally's been a victim of its own sort of TV success.
Oh, let's do everything from a helicopter
and everything from an onboard,
and you lose all of that sense of drama and speed
because it's just one long tracking shot.
You would have thought with...
I remember traipsing into a stage,
and the TV crews were there
with proper big old cameras and trucks.
It was much harder to film a rally in the 90s,
but I think we got better footage
and better programs,
whereas now you could film everything from everywhere.
But I think that's the same thing.
You see Formula One on boards now,
and it's kind of a nothing looks as exciting
as seeing the actually slightly shaky camera
that cuts out when you go under a bridge,
and you see there was something so visceral about that
that kind of brought it alive.
And they said as well that a lot of the fan cam footage
from the Rally's is actually more exciting.
It's the most comprehensive stuff, isn't it?
Like for Rally Finland,
when all those people stood really close
and the car comes apart,
you get a much greater sense of proximity and speed,
which is what you...
Which you don't get anymore from the official...
It feels quite lawless, actually, rallying,
which I like.
It's like this...
Not shouldn't be allowed,
but everything's so separated, isn't it now,
and designated spots for cameras and spectator areas.
And this is...
I can still walk down here,
and someone's going to come fangin' past.
We were still on the stage,
and it's quite a famous stage,
and I have no idea what the name is.
It's got a roundabout on it.
But we could just stand by the Enco,
which was just the road Enco,
and you can get amazing access
and just watching these cars,
and that real sense of seeing them move,
and they're coming down at high-speed braking area,
donuts roundabout if they knew they weren't going to do very well,
or if they were still on it,
just the angles they were getting as they're coming out of the roundabout.
But you don't get any of that on the official footage,
because it's too centralised,
and we'll just send that one chopper and use on-board footage.
Yeah, I think it's a strange thing,
because they're probably catering to...
I don't know, they're catering to a different audience,
in some respects,
and they've got to almost document the value.
If they focused on just getting the kind of,
cool passing shot from one particular place,
then you haven't kind of,
you're then leaving people frustrated.
It was like, well, I want to see the kind of,
you've got those amazing on-boards now
and kind of being able to see...
It's that...
And I know that they're so restricted in terms of costs
and actually the jobs they do in terms of just getting the...
It doesn't help that the cars aren't...
There's that famous in-car with Colin McRae's
that they're in a focus.
I came up with it the other day.
And the cars were so much looser, weren't they?
It was like really big steering inputs
and having to do a lot of work
to make the car change direction.
And just the whole thing looked really totally on the edge
in a...
I don't even...
Can't even interpret exactly what he's doing.
And then you look at the modern stuff
and it's blisteringly fast and ultra precise, isn't it?
And you can't believe the speeds they're doing
and how close to time, stage times are
over such long distances.
But the cars are absolutely planted, aren't they?
Well, that's how they appear from the angles you get.
So the stuff you do miss is the much more raw edgy.
It needs that grit, doesn't it, really?
Well, the other focus on board, it popped up on my feed the other day
and it starts off, it's quite...
It's flat out, it's 6th all the way through.
And it's just sort of doing that, isn't it?
It's flat out and it's from all corrections.
And then it's not just...
Oh, I need to put a bit of luck.
It just goes from that to full.
But he's getting more and more into it, isn't he?
And then he's saying from that point onward.
Because he would test the grip on the way
into the corner, basically.
So it's kind of that...
Because you watch Burns...
I think Burns was actually quicker through that same stage.
He was in the heat to buy, wasn't he?
Kind of like they do now.
Lobe did.
So he was...
They were so different in terms of their styles.
I've never seen something from Chris Meek
sort of pulled apart what Colin was doing
throughout the same stage.
So you can see he's kind of chucking in early,
feel the grip before he gets to the point of
kind of rather than doing what you sort of...
I think you could always tell in his driving
when the car was going well and he was on it.
He was just in...
Obviously wanted to win the rally or win the stage.
But he was having such a brilliant time.
It's like, oh, this looks like a good corner.
I'll plug it in here rather than trying to
plot the neatest possible line.
This is going to look spectacular.
I think that's what you kind of...
miss because all of those characters are still there.
I think Oliver Solberg is probably that kind of
slightly unhinged, brilliantly quick driver
who will, if he can win the stage
and entertain people, he will do that.
But if he can't win the stage, he's just going to entertain.
And I love that.
And I think it's a shame the cars
don't allow people to...
the difference in personality and style.
And Calle was the same with that.
Yeah, it doesn't have...
The cars don't reflect the characters of the drivers.
But it's the nature of them, isn't it?
With Downforce and everything else.
They encourage a particular way of driving, I guess.
Just like any modern racing car now.
Is it GT3 cars or L&P cars?
And I still think that.
They have to move around a bit,
but that's because they look horrible to drive.
And I still think it'll move around way more than Calle.
It's like what I think on the footage,
you don't see that movement as much.
Because that much lock,
when you're absolutely flat out between barriers,
there's a lot of locks.
But it's done and gone in a flash, isn't it?
It's still so.
I went to...
I'm not sure if it was the last time,
last world's rally GB we had,
but standing up on Meharan,
kind of sunny day,
and you stood up the top there
and you could see the cars coming down
through all the wind turbines.
And there's an amazing stretch down there.
So you go down, disappear around a bit,
and then come back in front of you.
And you just think,
and you can stand, like you say,
the kind of way you want.
We want that close,
but you kind of look down on it.
And you're saying,
this is just incredible.
It's kind of,
you just want to be able to plonk people there
and say, look, this is...
But you've had to walk in through the forest
and kind of like say,
you hear them and you hear them going off in distance.
And you watch all the different lights.
Yeah, I think it's...
It's scary, but in that,
I went rally GB,
I can't remember which year
it would have been a long time ago,
certainly when Colin McRae was driving.
And we walked into the stage
and obviously there's no...
It's not like going to a racetrack
and you can see rubber light,
like to see the line.
So we're walking in, walking in, walking in,
and there wasn't really anyone around.
And we thought,
oh, there was a really, really, really long,
let's be fast left hand corner
with a camber and a bit of a ditch.
So we were tucked right down in the ditch
on the inside,
because you'd think the inside's safer than the outside.
Until the first car came through,
which was Colin McRae.
And it was...
The car was pointing at you.
At us.
Brilliant.
Fully lit.
And it was like...
The weirdest you could see,
like his eyes looking through the corner.
And then for the briefest of moments,
he must have seen us going...
And it was gone and through,
but we were like pretty much right on the apex.
It still makes the head stand up on the back of my neck now.
But it was like sketchy,
but you'd never stand there
if you'd seen a car go through.
But bugger me,
it was like literally where we were stood,
because we'd thrown ourselves up on the bank
and where our feet were,
the inside front wheel was...
Mark was literally
about that much.
And we were like,
that was great.
Scurried further up the corner,
but you only get that with rallying, don't you?
Or maybe like the TT or something.
The TT's probably the only other thing
where you get that point-blank sense
of what's going on.
But we need a road trip, don't we?
We do, yeah.
I mean, there's rallying in between.
If you haven't been,
there's still British Rally Championship going on,
that's been...
Hopefully that'll get a lift now,
kind of like that in North Sea.
Yeah, cut your teeth on some British rallying this year.
But next year, I think it should really be
in everyone's diary as the event to go to,
if it means sacrificing something else,
but we're going to pick it up now
and it would just be a damp squib,
literally.
It's the one sort of...
You've got amazing stages up in Scotland.
You just hope people do go up there
because it makes it, obviously,
that little bit more inaccessible.
I think so. I think there's a...
I think people will...
...pent-up desire to see top-level rallying
in the UK isn't there, so...
And you can make a trip of it, can't you?
Because there are so many great locations
in Scotland on the way once you get over the border.
Yep, so you can probably make a...
Because the rallies are quite condensed now.
They're not some day to sasslay anymore, are they?
They are quite condensed into...
Yeah, like three days.
Three-in-a-bit days, aren't they?
You can make a good week of driving around
Scotland and catching up.
That would be fantastic for next year.
Yeah, I haven't announced the dates,
but hopefully it will be seen.
Well, rallying, segue, perfect segue in.
So one of the cars you've been driving
and you've got a great rallying
back catalogue.
You're not talking about the Aston Martin
Vantage rally car.
No.
Audi.
Audi RS5.
So, come on then.
You're one of the few that have driven it
because Audi had quite a strange
large program for that car.
Yeah, I drove it out in Morocco
and very few people got to drive it.
But it's...
Heavy? Heavy.
Yeah, 2,370 kilos for the
Avant.
It's about 15 kilos
lighter, I think, if it's good.
You get the saloon, which looks really good.
I've driven...
Saloon is a sportback, isn't it?
Or is it a three box saloon?
No, it's more of a three box.
It's definitely...
Yeah, definitely saloon.
It's not the kind of...
RS5 Avant is more
of a kind of...
It's not quite such a sort of boxy
estate.
The old RS4s were.
So, actually, it's got less
boot space than the old
RS4 because it's got batteries under the boot as well.
That's what we got you on for to discuss boot space.
Exactly.
Only watches.
Yeah.
All of them.
But...
I think it's going to be one of those cars that
owners will really like
because it still does
that Audi RS thing
of being, I think, a great car
to live with.
And they've...
Suddenly, clearly, at a very early stage
went, right, this is going to be
a hybrid.
And I think what they've done well is actually go,
OK, so, Abe, it's going to be hybrid.
We're going to give it a proper amount of
EV
only range. So, it's 54 miles,
which is very achievable.
We actually did use it because
it was so low on fuel.
We had to come all the way back down to Marrakech.
It wasn't a PR around to refill it for you.
Oh, my gosh, no.
It's kind of annoying.
I'm going to say later at night, I don't think anything is open, but
it was...
So, you've got that, which I think
you know, if you're going to have hybrid,
make it usable unlike the C63,
which was... didn't have
a big enough battery to do that. It was all about
performance.
And I think in something like the RS5,
you've got to... if you're going to have hybrid,
make it useful rather than just about
the performance story.
But then
they've used that to then have this clever
new torque vectoring rear diff,
which they couldn't have done
without having hybrid because they need the
400-volt architecture.
This rear diff's got
its own separate electric motor on it,
which is 10 brake horsepower and 30
pounds feet
torque. And it can then
torque vector properly and push the
torque, whichever way you want,
on our throttle and kind of do all the
clever stuff.
they've made the best
of it being
a hybrid, I think, and kind of
address both ends of the spectrum
with it. It's going to be practical
performance, right? We've given it some practicality
and we've given it some performance.
So, that's the...
But you can't get away from the fact
that it is chuffing heavy.
Does it fit? I mean
we go on about the weight of all
modern cars and then have to sort of put
that caveat on. Actually, it doesn't
feel that heavy, but then all the technology
in it is masking
its weight, isn't it? Exactly.
It's...
At times you can
feel the weight because you can't go
away from that, but
it breaks very well.
You've got a good pedal feel.
It's got fairly light steering and
it's always, obviously, how that would have been known
for it, but it turns in, charred down to
13.13 to 1
steering ratio, so it's pretty quick
steering ratio.
And you've got a new rear diff, so it's
got good balance.
So it's quite stable
under braking when you're moving around.
But agile, when you... Yeah, and it's
slightly...
In Morocco, the roads out there are pretty
polished and slippery
anyway, so it was always going to move
around more easily
on those sort of roads.
We did do a little thing on
the Marrakesh
track. There's like a big
look like a car park.
Because it basically is, because it was
originally a street circuit.
And they gradually made it more and more
permanent, which really
doesn't look permanent. And we did
some...
They set out this sort of slalom course
and then a set of cones at the end to do
some donuts. I think that's what I saw
some video footage of that. It did
look a bit like a hippo on roller skates.
Yeah, it was kind of
doing it, but it looked
like it was a bit brutal. It was very
brutal. That was definitely the
case was
that. It was one of the things
I jumped in the car because of filming
and stuff. And I was like, right,
we'll get this done and then go out on the road
and do that. And I suddenly realized
that everybody was there
but many people were there. But from
already, we're all watching.
Everybody had come out and you were like, oh, I'm
the first person to do this, aren't I?
This is the first morning and I'm the
first person and everybody's like, okay,
is this sort of...
Is it just our engineers that can...
If we set up this donut thing and he's just
going to...
Yeah, exactly.
Are those walls actually quite close?
Yeah, it was pretty brutal
in terms of...
It does it, but it's
better the tires. I destroy the tires.
I think
three
goes sort of like this.
I wouldn't say I'm the heaviest
footed person, but it
kind of...
Oh, my word, I think I've just... But they didn't see...
It wasn't a sort of...
Oh, my word, what have you done?
It was very much, oh, we've got some more tires
around the back. Here it is again. Would you like
to have another go, sort of thing? Wonder where that
sits on how do you sustain a bit of TV?
Somewhere near the bottom.
But having said that,
they had the sort of
circuit set out as well, which, like I said,
narrow, concrete barriers and stuff,
and it was sort of like pretty slippery because
it's obviously nobody's used it. So it's how long,
so it's really dusty and you've got all the
Saharan
sand on it and stuff. But
it was really good fun
around there and actually sort of, you know,
that off throttle kind of turning, pick up
the throttle, you'd be surprisingly neat.
Yeah.
So although the headline images and stuff
were all a bit smoking around there,
actually it was really good around
that little circuit and had proper
balance and adjustability and stuff.
And that was really
nice and perhaps
should have made more of... The tech's going to come
to help Audi, hasn't it?
Yeah. Because
they had quite a bad rep a long
time ago, didn't they, for being quite inert and
didn't ride very well, didn't want to
turn in. When they did, they were very
just
one-dimensional. And now
there's much more nuance
and poise and
balance in the car, isn't there? It's partly
because they just put more emphasis on that,
but more recently
because they can pull all these different levers now, can't they?
Yeah. And the ride is really
good. It's got these twin valve
dampers that can obviously do
compression and rebound
independently and all that. And it's
yeah, again, Morocco
not exactly somewhere you would launch
a car if you weren't confident
in its ride quality.
And yeah, so... How much
is it?
£92,000, I think it starts
at. Then
obviously if you want to add on... So what's a representative
spec 110
or something? Yeah, there wasn't huge
amounts you could... You can't put much on
the cars. It's colours and wheels, isn't it?
All the packs are...
Calm ceramic brakes obviously you can...
That would... So let's say
you're going to spend £100,000 on it, probably.
And what's an M3?
Touring
in a decent spec.
Or what's your CS? CS
is... One is expensive
£130,000. How much do you do?
How much is it? £130,000.
It is a huge amount, isn't it?
So it's much more
in line with a regular touring.
How do you compare it to an M3?
What would you... An M3 touring?
Because the CS I think is...
CS I think is just... So
good. It's
that CS thing again of kind of
some of them who've been like, oh okay, it's not...
Is it really sort of justifying...
I think I said on the previous episode, I think
the touring
of the M3 and 4 CS is that we've had
the touring is closer to the
original M2 and M5 CS
that we rated. But I think there's something about
the touring generally, isn't there?
It's actually quite likeable. More likeable.
Yeah, I drove the Mono, there was a BMW
day and a while ago and I hadn't driven
a load of stuff. I hadn't driven an M5 actually.
And I went down and so I jumped
in all sorts of things.
Jumped in the standard touring and I was like, oh yes,
this is... It just feels
right straight away.
And then you jump in CS and oh my word,
they've done the CS thing and kind of...
But the touring has got
because it's got the M4
cab
rear subframe racing hasn't...
It just seems to
elevate it above the standard
saloon and coupes, isn't it?
And then the CS. But
you still think an M3 touring...
Yeah, I think...
X Drivers
a system to me feels
more...
It either does the all-wheel drive thing really effectively
but the balance of the car is still quite
sweet.
But then when you play around with it,
it still feels appropriate to the car
whereas the Audi stuff
is a bit more contrived, isn't it?
And it's not quite so
it's not inauthentic
but it's just a slightly old fit, isn't it?
It's exactly. The BMW
does feel more natural
in kind of just in its responses
and kind of...
and feels lighter, which is ironic
because it's...
It's less of a problem, I think,
in the touring because you
look at it and go, well, it's a touring
so therefore it's going to be heavier anyway
so there's some slight sort of
mental gymnastics going on now
I suppose with the numbers but
you still have a BMW M3
touring.
But it's your point at the very beginning, an RS
for the people that want an RS5
or if you're living with that every day, actually
it's not something
that's going to disappoint you and frustrate you, is it?
No, and in certain situations
for certain people out there, you know
if you can charge at home overnight
and you're actually
you're probably more likely to
use the EV only
hybrid aspect of an RS5
than you are the
handling characteristics
of an M3. Do you remember
there's that sort of so...
But you can't run in hybrid
you can't get pops and bangs
which
seems to be the priority for some
Audi demographic. It doesn't sound like that's the other thing
it does not sound great. No, that's
a massive great... I know
I don't know whether someone...
Aston had played with the size of it
they look like that.
And it does look really good as well so the whole car
I think the
RS5 does look...
I think the standard A5 looks really good
but the...
But it just sound is...
we know what it's like these days
they're all so restricted they have
to be.
When you're
sort of in transient
throttle inputs and
do you feel...
Is it always
a cohesive
sense of propulsion?
Like a homogenous propulsion
you don't feel anything tail off or...
No, it's much better than
because we'll come onto that. How are we going to make something
I think you can feel it in that and this is
much more
cohesive in terms of how it's all come together.
In fact it's got
the boost button
on the steering wheel which just kind of feels
like well it's F1 kind of
we've got to have the boost button but actually
I never really
got it with the 911 turbos
have the boost button and that
was just felt...
I've got so much performance here. You're going so fast.
Why do I suddenly
need it? But in this
it makes more sense
because you can drive around in EV
hit the boost button it gives you
wakes up the v6 because you're everything straight
and that felt somehow
there's such a
paradigm shift from
fully v2
the boost mode having everything
there that actually you can see a situation where
that might be
It's a different experience
isn't it? It's just
it just seemed to make more sense.
Yeah
Impressed? I think so
I think it will be interesting to see how
How do you think it will work? I mean I know the UK
wrote it absolutely bloody well
I would have worked in Europe instead
of North Africa I guess
Yeah I'll have to see
how it does on a bumpy
because that's where again you just know
that weight is going to play
Well that's the M5
against it so struggle isn't it?
Unless you've wound everything up
it never seems to
find a sort of a settled
bit of control
to itself isn't it?
It does fleetingly and then you feel the need
to fiddle around with the mode again
That was one of the good things
with this so you've got
your RS sport
you've got the dynamic comfort and auto
sort of road modes and then you've got
your RS mode so there's
torque rear
which is the one that will do all that
stuff but just put it into RS sport
click that and I just
I wasn't instantly thinking
oh it's got RS in the vision as well
so you can tune it and maybe
we'll once do that but
for that day I had it
and you can
have that and then
where does that sit?
Yeah so you can have RS individual
so you can then tune it how you
want but if you just go with what they've
Well that's good because they
pre-prescribed
settings sometimes can always leave you
after a while you think
I still need to go into individual and knock it back
I think the UK's standard thing is to have a
slightly spicy powertrain
and the softest dampers
unless you're going quickly and then you go up
one don't you but
I remember sort of with
some of the BMW's
you spend the first little while just
this sort of bad thing you definitely feel like
okay I want to find the
you've got breaking
you've got regen you've got steering
and it's in there
it's not a case of it never feels comfortable
but you can find what works
I think it's the knowledge that you can
adjust lots of things
means you're always thinking
well I think it could be a little bit better
but the pre-prescribed ones never quite
feel right whereas this one we like
okay well that's fine it seems to be doing
well that's encouraged
which is good so
good stuff
I haven't got any
don't have no John Barker today
so I'm still going to have a quick break
and then we will be back
to talk all things Aston Martin Valhalla
so we'll see you in a couple of minutes
we are
in this part going to discuss Aston Martin Valhalla
Karl it appears to have been around for quite some time
it's been a long time coming hasn't it
very long time coming
it was at Geneva Motor Show
Andy Palmer did his Danny Barhar
and said we were going to build the universe
and then it appeared in the
which Bond film?
No Time to Die
was it the one before that?
that was the last one wasn't it
it was in the wind tunnel in the background
because that was delayed as well
that was a Bond film
with cars that had been delayed
and then had come out
so it had prototype defenders by the time the film came out
that's right because they had one there
when we drove the DB5s
strange times
Valhalla so it's nothing like it was
when it was first released
it's changed considerably hasn't it
because there was a change of management
and I think engineering
have they had them with third CEO
since that car was
Andy was
in charge when they
announced it but that's
when they had Valhalla
and they had a vanquished concept
which was the baby mid-engine car
which is now
stylistically it's kind of what we've got now
feels like it's much more somewhere
between those two
was that also Val
Creeper was at Geneva wasn't it
yes it was so they showed
the whole family for the design language
yeah it was a big push
to create mid-engine
at the back of the start
Gondas wasn't it
everything they literally were going to
there's a kitchen sink in there somewhere
I think you'd still buy one of those
it's quite new in Aston Martin residents
no it's
it's been through many iterations
was that the submarine as well
or was that later
there was an Aston Martin submarine at some point
it was going off topic here
sorry it was wild times
there was yeah
cheese dream of a product
strategy
the pre-IPA
we can do anything give us your money
strategy
so yeah Valhalla then
where did you drive it
was it road track
both yeah
and then the roads near there
which are endlessly amazing
yeah there's some great roads
yeah northern Spanish roads
and yeah it was very good
it was kind of
weird
weird price point
that's one of the big things with it
I think it's been coming in so you don't quite know
where it's going to sit
because it's this 850,000
it either seems expensive
or it seems like they haven't charged enough
so you don't know
well I think James
our deputy was speaking to
Adrian Hallmark
one of the things he said when he came in
it's too cheap
he thinks they should be charging more for it
but there's that thing is it a
F80 competitor
or does it sit
at the top of the supercar
and it's that curious thing
where we've got kind of it feels like
that sort of anything over
1000 horsepower now
to my mind it's still
the vast point of entry isn't it
now for a certain category of car
I think it's a hindsight car isn't it
it's easy to say
we should be charging more for it
but that's now knowing
how good F80 is
and then how good Revuelto is
but they're very different cars
and you can see why
one cost this and one cost that
what blew my mind actually
was
how much a Revuelto is
when you've specced it with stuff
because it's like 400,000 ish
the one we had on Carly was 750 grand
something like that
we had 15,000 euros worth of car mats
a fourth yes the worth of car mats
because it was like a triple option car mat
or something ridiculous
so when you
now having driven it
prior to driving
Valhalla I wasn't sure
quite where it sat
and what it would be
but knowing how much
Revuelto's are
in a fancy customer spec
I think the
Valhalla is a
league above
I think it's a league above Revuelto
it's not
quite F80
because F80 is more Valkyrie
so you wouldn't expect it to be
more about 849 Testerosa
Ferrari's other mid-engine
super hypercar
I think it's
I need more time in the Ferrari
because we had terrible weather
and I didn't get much time on the road
but I think again
it has more about it
and just the
construction of it, the carbon tub
and
much more aggressive
and influential
downforce and the kind of
shifting character from
the mildest road mode to the most aggressive
track mode it's got much more
bandwidth I think
than the Ferrari so again
I think it justifies
the sitting in it
it's almost created its own
niche I mean I guess you'll be able to
bend a fortune with the Q on a Valhalla
as well won't you but I'm sure
I think
it feels
special
as soon as you get into it because it's got that seating
position which is
20mm lower than any of its
competitors and it does feel
it's magic when you drop into it
which is boring high heels kind of
which is what they always had
great
sorry
no it is a
open the doors up and the interior is really
again
it's a special thing to
sit in and clean and expensive
looking and feeling
great view
so it ticks
all those kind of
supercar, hypercar boxes
I don't know
it feels like mini Valkyrie doesn't it in terms of that
it's got to ask how does
is there any connection
with Valkyrie that you feel
I think just in terms of that
that's a very precise view out
and the seating position
but it's so much more
and I think it's more impressive
in some aspects
a more habitable
more appealing interior I think
and much more important to us than Martin in terms of
the fact that this feels like
it's got a bunch of technology
and just stuff
that can be taken into
future cars
I think quite a lot has got lost hasn't it
or got forgotten because the spec of the car has changed
so much but it's their first
PHEV
first dual clutch
transmission
so there's
and those things
are arguably more significant
as
what they enable them to do
in other cars
than the fact they're doing a
son of Valkyrie
and it feels
to me it felt on the
849 and stuff like that in Testros
it feels like it's on pace
with other
supercars, hypercars
kind of in terms of the technology and stuff
which Aston
produced some wonderful cars
but they kind of felt just obviously that bit
behind
certainly Ferrari stuff like that
they haven't felt sort of tech wise
I think it's really nicely integrated
though isn't it
Ferrari have always long
been a
they're like pathfinders aren't they technology wise
and it's become
the core of what they
do is it's a demonstration
of the very latest tech
and because it's Ferrari and because they've got that
track record
all their suppliers
they kind of get first dibs
on a lot of cool stuff
but I think the
and you have to understand
how to interact with that
to get the best from the car
I think the interesting thing with our
HALA is it's got a lot of that
but it's
forefront in what it enables a car to do
but it's in the background
so far as how complicated
the car feels to
dial into where you want it
it just feels quite natural as soon as you
get in it so all you're
doing is enjoying the
enjoying the feel you get
and the driving environment
it's quite a different
it's not
it's so different from Valkyrie
like Valkyrie is just like a
a
weapons grade experience
but this is distinct
I think from
from Ferrari
from Lamborghini from McLaren
there's a bit of McLaren in it
I was going to say there's quite a bit of McLaren so it felt like that to me
but anything kind of in a good
what I mean the engine sounds like a McLaren
because it's a cross plane
flat plane crank
4.0L
V8
but I think steering
feel and steering connection
and the support of the car
that sense of a carbon tub that you sit in the middle of
and you can feel the sort of suspension
working at all four corners
on the road it was because I'd driven the prototype
on Stowe circuit last year
and then first thing I did
was drive this one round from Navarra
so I sort of knew quite a lot it was coming
and sort of that lovely playfulness
we had cup two tyres this time
and
I was able to
on the road and track or just for the track
so just for the track so you said same car
S5 on the road didn't they I think
so had same car but they
switched the and same wheels but they switched the tyres out
between track and road which kind of
made sense
and I'd driven it on the
lesser tyres
Stowe so it kind of I had
I felt like I had the full picture
to that extent but you've
what I hadn't been able to feel before
but could feel this time was the difference
going from the sport
plus to
track or race, race I can't remember
whichever the top one is
because
the prototype only had the aero
already in it's sort of full
setting and it makes
such a difference kind of
as you'd hope but it's nice to feel that
massive step with the
wing coming up and you get
the full air brake
the brake, the braking is
such a cool feeling, feeling that air brake
it's rarely an element
of driving that it's something
you look forward to it's just like the thing
you have to do before you then start to do
the enjoyable stuff again but
just the stability
and the smack
when you hit the pedal hard it's
really, really impressive
and there's all the theatrics of the
the wing is quite busy isn't it
it's always sort of shuffling
around and then it's just
there under braking
and it's really playful as well
that's the other thing it's kind of got this
playful
nature to it which you just kind of
I don't think you'd necessarily expect it
to me it never felt like a kind of
out and out track car
but it has this playful
I think that's because it's approachable
I think the actual capability of the car
like I think
and what's interesting is
Ferrari are clever in how they do their launches
so Aston Martin had a different
Cup 2 tyre for track
and S5 for road
Ferrari with the 849
had an Assetto Firano
car with the multi-matic dampers
for track
and then the adaptive
dampers
totally different cars and different tyres
seats and kind of
you could
it is like driving two different cars
basically
it's like there's a challenge to Adale
it's so different
whereas the Aston
fundamentally
I think the surprise is you approach it as a
big
quite an intimidating car
as it feels intimidating as you're walking up to it
it does because it presents as
it's a wide loam
big doors, quite heavy doors actually
the assistants maybe need
a bit more room
but
then you get in it
and it is really
you almost immediately
forget about the size of it
and because you can see out really well
you can place the car
so it isn't quite
the cliche that it totally shrinks around you
but you're not always
like that
you're just threading the car down the road
which is very McLaren-esque isn't it
with that
and what Henry said about
that you can feel exactly how hard
each corner of the car
is working whether it's loaded or unloaded
somehow so you really
like you can read the road
and you can look
like you see a corner with a bit of a crest in it
and you look forward to the
sensation that you're going to get in the car
it's really
going back to what you said before
about the sort of
driving on the road that was the big
revelation for me
I hadn't expected to be so
good on the road just the ride quality
there was some big old speed bumps
and stuff going through the towns to get to this road
and we didn't go on any particularly prescribed route
it wasn't the zone
don't go there, kind of go here
it was so we just went to
and I didn't have to put
nose lift up just sort of
surely this is some sort of
magical Spanish speed
and you see all the scuff marks on it
this is
and everything works
so the nose lift is easy to find
and quick and there's manual
like physical
buttons that you can
switch the exhaust valve on and off
and it's easy to get into the
dynamic modes
and then they've carried over the same
sort of switchable traction control
so you can have it
very conservative
or you can wind it
right the way through to off
but it's like
Vantage and
DB12 and that
but you can really lean on it and
understand how it works and trust it
it's not like a
and it's really clever because they're using the
I know Alucard's doing it as well
but they're using the torque vectoring capability
or the regen
sorry capability of the electric motors
to
act as the traction
and ESP
so rather than nipping at the brakes
and feeling like it's inherently slowing you down
that way it's much more subtle
kind of intervention
through the electric motors
it's a flattering car
you know sometimes you know you're driving
well
like you just you feel you in
any car and you kind of have a bond with a car
and it's oh this is really good that's how it
that seems to be how
it's driving with it rather
and yeah and it's helping you
but it's not
it never really lets you go to go
it's just the
limit is quite elastic
I think what you were saying
about the integration of the hybrid
and the RS5 and I think
what you feel
the two systems much more
I felt in Valhalla in terms of you've got
these massive great turbos because they're much
bigger than the ones in the NG GT
black series
so there are times when you can have that
high gear
get on it you have the electric motors
and then you're still feeling the kind of the turbos
spinning up behind
but I actually
felt like
it felt like character in the car
it didn't feel like at times I felt like it
can be frustrating if I initially
it's just learning its behaviors
aren't you and what it does
and how it does it
but I think that is
I think you describing it as
like character
rather than a flaw I think that
because you feel the torque steer
off the front axle
you can feel it working can't you
but it's again it's quite nice because
it feels like it's proper feedback
rather than just something that's kind of
rather than doing something
I think that's quite telling
about the headspace that you're in
when you're driving the car because if you
if you inherently
feel like you haven't fully
bonded with the car then
you always see those things as flaws and things
that annoy you but if you
you're getting to know the car
and you're understanding how it does things
and what it's doing and it's all
there's never any
sharp
joins or
edges in how
hands over things and how the
torque vector is working
it's working it's a very
kind of organic
considering how difficult it is it's quite an organic
you've got that feedback through sort of carbon
tub and stuff you've got that feel
I mean things that
it's pretty low rev limit with 7000 rpm
certainly on track that's
and it's a hard limit that's not
the engine doesn't sound great
that's the one I think
to be fair
to what the Aston guys have done
they've made that
absolute most
out of that engine because
it wasn't very promising
because it didn't
it's sort of quite workman like in the black series
and I don't think you
the other thing is I don't think you drive around
as you certainly did with
the early
the early advantage with the Mercedes
engine and stuff you drive around thinking
this is an AMG engine I've got
sort of I'm in an engine with a massive engine
whereas now they can open them up
and do actual hardware changes
to them
you ever drove around in a
Zonda thinking
this is out of an S-class
exactly you don't sort of
like I say it reminded me more of McLaren
I think it's an
interesting car because
obviously the project
was initiated with
Andy Palmer
and then you had Tobias Merz which is the
sort of AMG
really changed isn't it
but then it was handed over to
Amado Felicia
and at that point
quite a lot of guys from Lamborghini and Ferrari
and McLaren
came to Aston Martin
I think one of the interesting things about you
talked about spec earlier on Valhalla
and actually in terms of the looks
I think it's again lifted above
it does have that sort of mini hypercar
particularly when you've got the big rear wing up
and stuff but
talking about Revuelto and how much you can
option it and stuff I asked
about right when he's head of
design sort of head of
kind of exactly
had he seen any particularly
good specs or
what was his favourite spec and he'd seen one
I think it was a purple one with
just gold sort of picked out because
there were all sorts of livery packs and stuff
and he said purple with gold
which he was like that's going to be
and saw it and actually I've seen
I've looked at quite a lot of the configurator
ones and it does seem
it can take something like really
outrageous instead of all quite racy
best one I've seen and it's probably actually
Gordon Ramsay's one which is super subtle
kind of so it's a really dark blue but with
a sort of light blue stripe on it
and that looks... they had a white one with a bright blue stripe
on the launch which look
yeah, Gordon's a mega doesn't he
he's been patbed and seen everywhere around London
but I think you can go either way
with it you can make it, you can go that full
sort of lime green
sort of one and you could make it
there is one look
is it blue and orange trying to look like
golf colours, that's why he doesn't
work, possibly
yeah I'd say, could we not have that one
for various reasons but it was
but yeah I think it's quite
a clever car like that you can
and interior wise you can have
chopped carbon finish
on the tub currently on the inside or
regular weave
and there's different bright work finishes
and it's just
and all the watt switches you have
the rotary controller and
that was one thing actually, I think the interior
seating position stuff aside did feel like
the interior wasn't kind of
it's those two screens
that it looks like you've got a vinyl and get one free
kind of, exactly the same size
it's quite plain isn't it, it lacks the
for that money
occasion maybe but it's a different
kind of
Lamborghini you've got the
shock and all stuff squared away haven't
they so you don't want to do all the trigger
guards and all that kind of stuff
and Ferrari has a very distinctive
look as well, McLaren
McLaren's quite minimalist isn't it
it's screen that you don't use because
it never worked but you've just got
they've gone down that paired back
he's a steering wheel with no buttons
he's an instrument pack that's very clear and nothing
on it and yeah I think it screens
isn't it, it's flat flat screens generally
are very
it just
uninteresting, yeah
still got the nice tactile switches
which we like from other Aston Martin's
but I think you know going in at that
price point and saying right does it
the exterior looks
looks like it's worth it interior
to me apart from the seating position
maybe doesn't
quite live up to that
but what does it sound like
because you mentioned on the R6
you know comparing the family estate car with the supercar
that was the thing that let it down
on the fellow halogen
inside there's a little bit of p1 about it
because you do hear it building boost
and releasing boost pressure and
you've got to be going pretty quick to kind of
you feel like you have to get everything pretty hot to kind of
go for it
but it has got some character isn't it
and I think really early
there was some early development footage of them
and they were whisper quiet
this one at least has some
I think mechanical drama when it
fires up it's not like a Revuelto
or anything I think that still
is very very hard to beat
yeah it's definitely
yeah it's not Revuelto it's not
hasn't got that spine tingling kind of
soundtrack but
they did say because
it's got no mufflers on it at all so it's got this
four exhausts
so the lower ones are valved
to keep them quiet but the top two
are valve because the pipe work
is so long that it comes out
splits to the
lower ones which are valve then goes all the way back up
through an 180 degrees before they
come back up the top so the pipe works so long
they don't need the mufflers on it
so all you're thinking at that point is
well surely somebody's just going
to go we don't need that much pipe work
up there and we'll just go
aftermarket exhaust
makers will probably be selling
quite a few to
Valhalla owners which is
you think all the
hoops they have to jump through noise
red wise and then
you think why can't you just
have it as a
post-registration option but I don't think any of them
really want to go there because it's
well the way that won't help because
you're going it's coming into more and more
cities of having noise monitors
like speed cameras so you'll just get pinged
for too much noise it's happening with
it works well in hybrid in just
EV mode actually I think
like trundling lights not too
it's got a good EV
going into the EV sounds but both
RS5 and this had
vaguely decent I think just
if you got used to
going back to WEC and stuff
those can't get used to that
race car
which is at least
a pit lane acceleration
not just something made up so
it
cruises well on the motorway
again Valkyrie is absurdly
noisy I think
you're not going to go on a long journey because you're going to have to have the RS5
behind you you've got to take your luggage
because you've got any luggage in them
because
there's nothing
they've looked at the competitor
set and they've gone to the Ferrari
on SF90 so what did they get wrong
we've learned from that and we've learned from this
but they're caught aren't they
because you've got the technology
and what you can do
you stuck between is it a touring car
or is it an ultimate
driving
supercar
with hybrid stuff
they sort of have to do that
unless they make it even bigger
at which point
you can't even stuff anything behind the seats
can you
and that's the sort of the
in terms of saying RS5 is one of those cars
but I think owners are really going to
love it because of the
sort of practical everyday work
you do wonder
my fear is that
it could be a bit like the
that looked like the fabulous
grand touring sort of thing that you could disappear off round Europe
and then discover that it literally had a briefcase size
boot on it because
they're not designed for it
I don't know it might be one of those
it might not be
I imagine Adrian Hallmark will have a solution for you
and it's called a DBXS
that follows you with your love
is it how
how's it going to make
Vantage
and DP12 and vanquish
feel dynamically
and how they drive because it's
you know as the Martin is
front engine GT super sports cars
and stuff and now they've got this
mid-engine super
hypercar is it going to be so far
removed because it's one thing Ferrari managed to do
they still managed to keep that
Ferrari character whether it's
middle front engine
does it feel like an Aston Martin when you're
we're learning aren't we
it's like the
you can kind of forget Valkyrie as a
related to anything
so this is the first
our first chance to see what a mid-engine
I don't think it feels like an Aston Martin
but I don't think that's a bad thing
well it feels like
a new mid-engine Aston Martin
because it's not a carbon copy
of any of them
so I think that's quite nice it is like the
new
the new essence of whatever they
do like you can imagine
I said to the guys
I love driving Valhalla but I'd
love to know what
296
like what a baby
version of that could be because if you can
take the best bits even just putting the dual clutch
gearbox into the
advantage or some of that
sort of you see how that elevates
it and all these things that they
I think it could be exciting
there's a lot of
you know yeah as I said before there's a lot of
significant things in the car
beyond
what that represents is a
I mean I don't know is it a super car is it a high car
I'm increasingly
it's somewhere in the middle doesn't it
that's the truth of it
it does exactly
you know it is
above
well they're all doing is that they're all position themselves
slightly away from anything that
you would consider a direct competitor
you don't have that comparison
because you're doing your own thing and
you'll take cherry picking
bits from different
different cars that most people would
consider a competitor but it's
I think it's probably
a cut above isn't it I think if you're
if you're in that
world and you turn up
somewhere in that car
with your
small wash bag
you don't
I think it makes more of a statement than
turning up in a
in a 750S or you know
it is of another
level I think which I think would be
important to you if you've just
dropped the best part of a million quid on something
but it's all part of that overall
experience isn't it
I think it's I can't think of anything that
does
quite what that does because an SF
19 never really
although they got better to drive
it never really resonated with anyone
I don't think as an
immediately recognizable
or desirable
Ferrari
Lamborghini obviously is a Lambo
isn't it so it just everyone knows
you've arrived in it but
yeah I think they're in an interesting
place
with this
driving it's that's two new cars
very early on in the year
both of them into
e-coachy or what are you thinking
you've driven both you've only driven
we were talking something that's going to happen in Bunstown
I would think if our
Hallorism would be a really interesting car
no it's got a tough act to follow with
Revwell to performance
last year but
yeah I went into driving
it thinking all is it going to
how would it stack up with lots of
different people driving it on lots of different roads
and then I came away thinking it's
it's really impressive actually
so I think it would be good
I don't know how these are always tricky ones aren't they
they're kind of yeah I think it would be
yeah it would be good to have it there I think it would be
interesting
and
probably surprise a few people
okay yeah that's good
that's good science well let's put them on the list
I'll put them on the list
and get them booked in well thank you very much
we'll bring this one to a close
Henry, Dicky and everyone else
thank you very much don't forget to subscribe
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About this episode
Henry Catchpole and Dickie Meaden kick off with WRC’s return to the UK, likely around Aberdeen/Scotland, sparking debate about rally’s TV-driven loss of drama, the need for more UK-accessible motorsport, and how new Rally1/Rally2 rules aim to cut costs and keep the racing meaningful. They then review Audi’s RS5 (driven in Morocco), praising its usable EV range and hybrid-enabled torque-vectoring rear diff while noting its weight and sound limitations. Finally, they discuss Aston Martin Valhalla: a long-gestating, PHEV mid-engine hypercar that feels surprisingly road-capable, with standout aero/“air brake” theatrics and a more integrated, characterful hybrid feel than expected.
Original notes
In this week's episode of the evo podcast, Henry Catchpole returns for a chat about his experience behind the wheel of the new Audi RS5 and Aston Martin Valhalla. We also discuss the return of top-level rally to the UK, plus a whole lot more...
00:00 Intro
01:55 WRC returns to the UK
26:10 Is the Audi RS5 any good?
41:37 Driving Aston Martin Valhalla
The evo podcast
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