There seems to be no shortage of German on German action these days. Just the other day we saw the new BMW M5 take on an equally powerful Mercedes-AMG E63 S, and before that, a BMW 740e went head-to-head against a Mercedes S450. The latest drag race video is no less dramatic – it pits an Audi RS5 against a BMW M4 Competition.
On paper at least, the two cars share a number of similarities. They both hail from Germany, for one, and they both produce a hefty 444 horsepower (331 kilowatts) courtesy of a V6 engine. The RS5 has more torque, though – 443 pound-feet (600 Newton-meters) vs. 416 pound-feet (550 Newton-meters) – and comes with an all-wheel-drive system. The BMW is lighter, though, tipping the scales at around 3,500 pounds (1,587 kilograms) compared to the RS5's heftier 3,649-pound curb (1,655 kilograms) weight.
So, how do these two cars stack up in the real world? The good folks at TheMotoristSA decided to pit the two luxury sports cars against each other in a straight line on a drag strip in South Africa. The results... well, they're not all that surprising. The RS5 jumps to a commanding lead off the line thanks to its all-wheel-drive system. The setup prevents the car from spinning its tires too much, unlike the M4. But the M4 is still pretty powerful, and nearly catches the RS5 once it manages to find grip.
At the end of it, the RS5 takes home the gold by a good margin. The M4 just wasn't able to compensate for the large amount of wheel spin at the start of the race, whereas the RS5 had a significantly tidier start. Since the cars are so evenly matched, though, we'd love to see how the M4 Competition stacks up against the Audi in a rolling race.
