Small changes give the revised R8 a shot at greatness.

The second generation R8 launched in early 2015 was in many senses an evolutionary design. After all if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. While the crisper new front looked good, it’s more angular grille and lights were in keeping with then current Audi styling motifs.

From the look of the sleek and modern cabin architecture to the pleasing feel of control operations, the sense of quality in the new R8’s cabin was absolute. With the optional full leather package, every surface is covered with high quality hides. It was undoubtedly the best made supercar cabin in the business.

Fast-Forward to late 2018, and Audi has given the R8 a mid-life makeover to bring it in line with their latest design trends. Jürgen Löffler, the man in charge of exterior design for the project walked us round the face-lifted car.

“Within the new nose cone the grille is lower and wider, and loses its chromed surround,” he explained. “This gives the front of the car a wider and lower look even though the rest of the bodywork is unchanged. The three slats above the grille are a homage to the ur-quattro Sport and we use a black plastic insert to visually extend the inside edges of the headlamps. This makes them look longer and the angle formed on the inside edge more closely approximates the angle of the grille.”

“Rather than just turning the corners smoothly, the sides of the new nose are shaped like vertical blades. Apart from looking sharper our wind tunnel tests confirmed they are also beneficial to the cars aerodynamics,” he said. “Below the bumper line the air splitters are larger, which helps to improve aerodynamic stability at speed.”

Along the flanks, the new side sill elements with black or optional carbon-fibre inserts visually reduce the body height, enhancing the cars perceived length. At the rear the revised full width underbody diffuser adds visual width to the car and incorporates the new oval exhaust outlets. Above this the engine-cooling grille is now full width as well. As before the base model has a powered rear wing, while the more powerful version has a fixed wing.

From the look of the sleek and modern cabin architecture to the pleasing feel of control operations, the sense of quality in the R8’s cabin is absolute.

With the optional full leather package, every surface is covered with high quality hides.