AUDI E5 Sportback Achieves Lap Record on China’s Ridge Circuit

[Source: Car News China]

A couple of months ago we reported that the AUDI E5 Sportback racked up 10,000 orders within the first 30 minutes of it going on sale. It turns out that the AUDI E5 races with a pace that matches its sales performance. According to a report by Car News China, the E5 set a lap record for production vehicles priced under 500,000 yuan ($69,000) on China’s Ridge Circuit.

The AUDI E5 Sportback put down a lap time of 01:42.99 around the 1.5-mile mountain circuit. The course features 31 corners, 233 feet of elevation change and gradients of up to 45 degrees. The circuit which was just opened last year is carved into natural mountain terrain. Audi certainly knows a thing or two about racing up a mountain. This new Chinese circuit places an emphasis on dynamic handling and chassis control over top speed.

Overall, the AUDI E5 is the third fastest car ever to lap the circuit. It was just twenty-five hundredths of a second behind the second place Xiaomi SU7 Ultra. In first place with a time of 01:40.16 is the much more expensive Porsche Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach Package. The AUDI E5 was quicker than a standard Porsche Taycan 4 as well as the Lotus Emira 4-cylinder.

What might be the most impressive fact of all is that the AUDI E5 set this lap time in the rain. It was the fastest wet lap for any car and by a large margin. The next fastest wet lap was a 01:47.97 set by a Porsche 718 Spyder. That is nearly 5 full seconds off the pace of the AUDI E5. Five seconds on a 1.5-mile-long course may as well be a year. It is a massive time difference, and it really shows just how capable the E5 is.

This is one heck of a first effort for the China-dedicated AUDI brand. The cars should only get faster and more capable from this point forward. It would not surprise us at all to one day see an AUDI at the lap of the Ridge Circuit leaderboard. Especially if it gets a chance to run the course on a nice, sunny day.