Watch This Audi R8 Nearly Crash at the Nürburgring
Saved at the last second by one impressive drift.
Just watching this video might be enough to make you clench up. A first-generation Audi R8 nearly crashed at the Nurburgring when it came into a turn too fast—only to avoid certain damage when the driver pulled off an impressive drift, staying in it long enough to shunt the mid-engined Audi back on track.
The clip, which brings to mind the recent Koenigsegg One:1 crash at the 'Ring, starts out looking bad for the Audi. The R8 comes screaming over a rise far too fast, almost immediately understeering off the pavement. But the driver of this mid-engined Audi clearly had a quality driver's ed teacher; he cranks the nose towards the tarmac and lays on the throttle, and the all-wheel-drive claws the R8 back to the track. (Once the car is off-camera, things may have taken a bad turn—there's an unpleasant metallic sound at the very end of the video—but since we don't know for sure, we'll hope for the best.)
Remarkably, this isn't even the first instance of a car drifting its way out of a nasty impact with a track wall we at The Drive have seen this week. Only a few days ago, NASCAR stock car driver Erik Jones lost a rear tire while traveling nearly 200 miles per hour at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the Lilly Diabetes 250, only to save his stocker from impact by executing a powerslide that can only be described as "Blockian."
Still, Jones is a professional—impressive as the save was, we expect that sort of impressive maneuvering from folks like him. Some Rando Calrissian on an open track day at the Nurburgring? That's another story.