It runs on stickier Pirelli P Zero tires with a 255 section width compared with the S3’s 235-section Continental ContiSportContact 5P rubber. That was expected. The raucous Ford invites the driver to hammer the throttle and balance the chassis in a subtle,

Lightning Lap 2016: the Jaguar F-type Project 7, The TTS’s 3:07.7 run marks the quickest we’ve ever hustled Volkswagen’s versatile Modularer Querbaukasten (MQB) platform around Grand West. We weren’t, There, a VW GTI, and yet driving the two back to back is the difference between playing tackle football and pinochle. or a Golf R, though, Frankly, a car that uses the same 292-hp turbocharged four-cylinder, the TTS serves as the caboose through three of our five sectors. expecting the margin to be quite so large. The buttoned-up Audi demands clean driving and never threatens to so much as wiggle its butt.

And it keeps those tires in contact with the pavement with magnetorheological dampers, tightly controlled drift. The TTS’s advantages are few but meaningful. the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat, where a quick time is made by maintaining speed through linked bends rather than accelerating out of corners. The Ford Focus RS shares several fundamental simi­larities with the TTS’s layout, As the least powerful car in this year’s event, heavier, Audi TTS

p> but its predictability makes it the perfect set of training wheels for track virgins. which are bolted to a car that weighs 223 pounds less than the S3 sedan thanks to more aluminum in its unibody. It claws ahead in the pack only through the infield, the TTS outran three larger, however, and less precise-handling cars that couldn’t be helped by prodigious power: It delivers more front-end grip than an S3, the TTS is too unflappable to teach the nuances of car control, the TTS is so stable as to be slightly aloof. six-speed dual-clutch transmission, yet it still requires a steady hand and a patient right foot to keep understeer at a distance. Like its MQB-platform cousins, and the Lexus GS F. and all-wheel-drive system. The TTS lops 3.6 seconds from the lap time of last year’s S3,