In stock form, the car comes with a turbocharged 2.0-liter TFSI engine, rated at 261 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque, which is more than enough to provide most owners with sufficient entertainment value.
Tommy Schønberg, owner of TS Racing, does not fall into the “most owner” category. In fact, it’s safe to assume that Schønberg is of the “too much is never quite enough” school of thought, which is why he’s gone beyond reasonable in tuning his own S3.
The converted-for-track-use car only resembles an S3 in the vaguest way possible, as every luxury bit has been binned in the name of weight savings. Substitute a full roll cage for automatic climate control and racing seats for leather-wrapped sport seats, and you see where this is going.
Under the hood, the 2.0-liter TFSI engine has been swapped for a 2.5-liter, five-cylinder mill, pushing enough boost to make 1,074 horsepower and 854 pound-feet of torque. That’s a significant gain over the Audi RS3, which gets 335 horsepower and 332 pound-feet of torque from the same engine in more modest tune.
While we don’t have performance figures, the clip (shot by Hesleskaug Video) clearly shows that careful throttle work is necessary to keep the car pointed in the intended direction, even with quattro AWD. We’re guessing that the car is a handful to drive fast, and utterly unforgiving of mistakes at speed.
In fact, there’s only one reason to convert an Audi S3 grocery-getter into a thousand-plus horsepower track animal: because race car.