New Audi RS 3 revealed

The last Audi RS 3 had a stop-start relationship with Australia, but the all-new RS 3 will be here to stay – and brings more aggressive styling, more power and speed, more interior luxury and a livelier all-wheel drive handling package.

Based on the new Audi A3 Sportback and sedan, which arrive Down Under in standard and S3 forms around October, the fourth-generation Audi RS 3 will again be available in both five-door hatchback and four-door sedan forms when it arrives in Australia in the first half of next year.

The 2022 Audi RS 3 also retains the German car-maker’s trademark five-cylinder 2.5-litre turbo-petrol engine, which brings the same 294kW maximum power output but delivers it over a broader 5600-7000rpm, and now produces 20Nm more peak torque – at 500Nm over 2250-5600rpm.

As a result, with the standard seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, Audi claims the new RS 3 will hit 100km/h in just 3.8 seconds – 0.3sec better than the model it replaces and 0.1sec quicker than the Mercedes-AMG A 45 S – and can reach up to 290km/h.

Audi Sport admits the biggest target for the RS 3, which made a comeback to Australia in June 2020 after 18 months in the WLTP sin bin, is the mighty BMW M2 Competition, and with the compact coupe’s rear-wheel drive layout and six-cylinder turbo power, Audi is up against it.

It has attacked the problem from two directions: handling and interior specifications.

For starters, the stance of the new Audi RS 3 is much wider than before, with 33mm more front track. It’s so wide because Audi wants its turn-in crispness to be faultless and reliable, but it also allows space to add an air breather and air curtains in the front-end to improve its aero performance, much like the latest RS 3 LMS racer.

Indeed, Audi has touched up the entire car to improve cornering performance, including the option of semi-slick rubber, the addition of a new, drift-happy rear differential, stronger brakes and faster-acting dampers at each corner.

Luxury touches can be seen everywhere on the RS 3, including an optional panoramic sunroof and optional Matrix LED headlights to replace the standard LEDs (front and rear).

There’s yet another Audi lighting party trick in the form of a pixel field comprising three sections of five LEDs, with the left side lighting up to form a chequered flag when the car is turned on or off, and the right side spelling out ‘RS 3’.

The 2022 Audi RS 3 takes the already superb A3 interior package and fusses it up with extra luxury, including sports seats with inbuilt head restraints and the hexagonal trim stitching that has become an Audi Sport hallmark.

It retains the same basic 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, but adds its own software and graphics to map out more performance-specific information.

This includes a ‘RS Runway’ display option for the rev counter, which makes no intuitive sense but Audi Sport claims it makes the tacho look like a “plane on a runway”, increasing in size in the middle of the cluster as revs rise and vice-versa.

The digital dash also presents more interesting info, like a g-analyst, a lap timer and stopwatch for 0-100km/h, 0-200km/h and even the quarter-mile sprints.

The blinking shift light from other RS 3 models works only in manual mode, while the 10.1-inch touch-screen multimedia display adds an RS Monitor to keep an eye on coolant, engine and transmission oil temperatures, plus tyre pressures.

The new RS 3 also gains a head-up display for the first time, the central display surround is made from carbon-fibre and there is RS embossing and stitching in the seats.

The sheer volume of effort directed at making the 2022 Audi RS 3 stop, turn and get out of corners as quickly as possible clearly indicates where Audi Sport wants to take its smallest model.

Aimed at delivering class-leading handling is a more rigid chassis with wider wheel tracks (the rear-end is 10mm wider), which broadens the footprint and allows a big jump in the negative camber angles it can run at both ends.

It rides on 19-inch wheels as standard, but they can be fitted with optional Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R cup tyres if you ask for them.

But the biggest upgrade is a new Torque Splitter rear differential to combat the RS 3’s inherently nose-heavy stance.

It ditches the old car’s clutch pack in front of the differential in favour of a diff with a clutch pack at either side, with small balls on ramps rising and falling to open and close the packs.

While it can’t direct 100 per cent of torque to a single wheel, it can come mighty close, and it can also send almost all of its drive to the rear, though the active nature means that’s not realistic most of the time.

The new RS 3 ditches magnetically controlled dampers in favour of a new variable damping system based around a new piston valve.

The new set-up uses an external bypass valve, like in motorsport systems, and it responds to damping forces within 10 milliseconds. It has a claimed 10 times the damping range of the outgoing system, allowing the same chassis to be both sporting and comfortable.

It’s also more accurate, by using three accelerometer sensors (two on the front and one on the rear left) for triangulation to deliver greater precision, and the damping set-up can be separated from the powertrain in both the Individual and RS Performance modes.

There are five modes for the dampers alone – two of them RS modes – and there’s also the option of dynamic chassis control, which constantly adapts the damping.

The new RS 3 rides 10mm lower than the S3 and 25mm lower than the A3, but this time it employs its own suspension knuckles at the front and the rear knuckles have a degree more negative camber than even the stock S3. So the car ends up with -1.45 degrees of camber at the rear and -1.29 degrees at the front.

The stiffness of the lower link and the wishbone have been increased for extra precision, while the steering is similar in its hardware and uses the same rack as the S3 but runs RS-specific software and power-assistance package.

Tyre sizes rise from 255mm at the front to 265/30 R19 rubber, and 245/35 R19 at the rear.

The 2022 Audi RS 3 has three top speeds, which is irregular. The first is the normal 250km/h limit, then there’s 280km/h as an option, and now you can get to 290km/h with the option of a dynamic chassis package and carbon-ceramic brakes.

The stock front anchors comprise big ventilated metal discs measuring 375x36mm discs and six-piston callipers with 15 per cent more brake-pad surface, plus 310x22mm rotors at the rear.

But the new RS 3 will also be available with Arcarbono carbon-ceramic front discs measuring 380x38mm, clamped by Brembo six-piston callipers.

Expect the 2022 Audi RS 3 Sportback and sedan to arrive in Australia around April next year, accompanied by price tags that will almost certainly be closer to $90,000.