Stig's special trick

Anticipation
Rally legend Stig Blomqvist looks
forward to experiencing the power
of the four electric motors.
Mobility
Stig Blomqvist rockets down the Audi test track in the Audi e-tron Silvretta.
Fast, but without the usual engine noise.
PHOTOS | OLAF TAMM/AGENTUR FOCUS
Stig Blomqvist
was born in 1946 in Örebro,
Sweden. In 1984 he became
World Rally Champion in an
Audi quattro, and was runner-up
the following year. He participated
in 84 world championship
races in all, and he still races
rallies occasionally today. His
17-year-old son Tom Blomqvist
is now active as a racing driver
in the United Kingdom.
And he liked it too, of course.
The approximately 300-meter test
track is covered with a slurry of snow.
Perfect conditions for the Swede, who
is addressed in his home country as
“Mäster Blomqvist” – which translates
roughly as Lord Blomqvist. Slowly
and deliberately, Blomqvist moves
the automatic selector lever to D. He
pauses to check his “butt instinct.”
This is a term coined by a Formula One
driver who once explained that the
secret of fast racing drivers is that they
can feel with their behinds how a car
will react. The better the driver applies
his sensors, the faster he will be on the
track. Blomqvist slides back and forth,
but in an electric car, his butt instinct
apparently does him little good. At
least not at first.
He releases the brake and gingerly
applies the gas. The gas Actually,
that’s the wrong term. The right pedal
doesn’t cause a gas mixture to start
flowing – it pulls electricity from the
roughly 470-kilogram lithium-ion
batteries mounted behind the seats.
The documentation says the
Audi e-tron Silvretta accelerates from
zero to 100 km/h within 4.8 seconds.
The burst of acceleration from 60 to
120 km/h is supposed to take just
4.1 seconds. That’s on a par with the
performance of a high-performance
supercar with a gasoline engine. Can
that really be possible with batteries
Blomqvist answers that question
with his right foot. Immediately after
he puts the car into motion, he’s
pressed into the deep bucket seats,
which are designed for racing. All of his
neck muscles tense. His feet want to
press against the force of acceleration,
and he moves to get a foothold on the
floorboard.
The Audi e-tron Silvretta
doesn’t accelerate, it rampages.
Stig Blomqvist says:
“Powerful, very powerful.”
After this start, acceleration will have
to be redefined. Other sports cars have
a launch control function that charges
through all gears and sends the vehicle
to the rev limiter in automatic mode.
Compared to the “e-start” of the R8,
this seems like a silky-smooth little
push. The Audi e-tron Silvretta doesn’t
accelerate, it storms and rampages like
a hurricane.
Blomqvist describes it as “powerful,
very powerful.”
Maybe behind that cool, Nordic
exterior there’s a storm of emotion
raging. Maybe Blomqvist is reminiscing
about his spectacular drive along the
Col de Turini in 1984 when he plowed
through the narrow mountain passes
in four-wheel drift and left other rally
greats looking like beginners. It’s all
possible – but there’s simply no sign
of it. Instead, Blomqvist says simply:
“The traction functions well. It handles
differently than the original quattro.
The car reacts precisely to commands.”
Blomqvist uses clinical language
to describe a very special kind
of technological prototype. The
Audi e-tron Silvretta provides a hint
83