Like it or not, your favourite performance car manufacturer is working on hybrid powertrains. The escalating cost of fuel, increasingly strict emissions regulations and enticing tax breaks for lower emissions vehicles are all forcing the hand of even the most hardcore, race-bred badges.

BMW’s M Division, Mercedes-AMG and even Ferrari are using battery packs and electric motors to simultaneously fill gaps in torque delivery and attempt to bring fuel consumption and emissions down to a more ‘acceptable’ level.

Yup, even Audi’s revered RS badge isn’t immune from the impending march of electrification and the potent RS 5 becomes the next in its model line-up to pair a 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6 petrol engine with a 130kW electric motor, driving all four wheels with a heady mix of old-school grunt and instantaneous EV torque. Total power output is 639hp, while total torque is a punchy 590lb ft.

It’s also the first of its kind to offer an impressive 50 miles of all-electric range, as well as the ability to plug in and top up the 25.9 kWh (22 kWh net) battery pack for those shorter trips around town… or to simply eke the most out of a tank of fuel.

Alas, the major elephant in the room is the kerb weight that, at a portly 2,355kg for the sedan or 2,370kg for the avant, isn’t shy of the world’s largest living land mammal.

But Audi engineers have thrown every conceivable technological trick at the RS 5 to disguise its mass through corners, offering brutal performance and the ability to rail curves like a vehicle half its size.

Napoleon dynamite

As with many road trips that skirt the French Riviera, the Route Napoleon plays a big part in this test drive, with the snaking, mountainous passes acting as the perfect canvas to test the RS 5’s bandwidth.

But this trip is a little special, as the driving precedes arguably the most important fixture on the Formula 1 calendar: the Monaco Grand Prix.

As a racing spectacle, it’s arguably not the greatest, but the tangible weight of wealth that floods into the area on race weekend is like little else on this planet. Plus, the glamour, the history and the backdrop of bobbing super yachts remains unbeaten.

While The Guardian is covering looming recessions and a cost of living crisis, the world’s biggest earners are blowing the average person’s annual salary on a ticket to watch the most advanced race cars duke it out under the baking Mediterranean sun.

But before we get into the extravagance of Monte Carlo, there’s the not insignificant issue of a hulking RS 5 Avant to deal with.

Parked up in the underground car park beneath Nice Airport, which also houses a menagerie of Ferraris, Rolls-Royces and Bentley Continentals, the latest RS 5 cuts an imposing figure.

“Audi says it allows customers to chew through tyres on a track day with reckless abandon”

Optional darkened Matrix LED headlights take pride of place on a menacingly low and overtly pumped-up front end. The car has been widened by 4cm over its standard A5 sibling, there’s a hulking rear diffuser at the rear and the exults system’s twin oval tips are centrally positioned and impossible to ignore.

As with RS models that have come before it, the typically flared wheel arches, asphalt-grazing ride height and array of massive (up to 21-inch) alloy wheels are all present and correct. The number of thumbs up received from fellow drivers before we have even left the airport complex is impressive.

The route out of Nice and up into the Maritime Alps is predictably slow and nondescript, but the RS 5 glides along the Promenade des Anglais, emitting nothing from its tailpipes, both in terms of noise or emissions.

That exhaust system has been built from scratch so its valves can open to any position, which has allowed engineers to create the right soundtrack for each driving mode. In EV mode, it’s dead silent.

The ride is impressively supple too, with the RS 5 receiving a specific five-link suspension front and rear and twin-valve shock absorbers. According to Audi, the front axle went through targeted redevelopment: new joints, links, and rubber bushings introduced to improve the ride.

What’s more, both compression and rebound can be controlled independently, while the entire system was tuned not just with race tracks in mind, but also the scarred, pothole-ridden road surfaces of Northern Europe.

“Attempting to prod and interact with that touchscreen while a co-driver navigates the twisting routes of coastal France is a sure fire way to lose your predominantly cheese- and bread-based lunch”

Mention of bandwidth will come up a lot in this article, but first impressions of the RS 5’s low speed mannerisms are impressive. This is a seriously comfortable car when it wants to be.

The Monocasse monster

It doesn’t take long before the route out of Nice becomes interesting, as the N85 winds up towards the Parc national des Ecrins. Often, these stretches are choked with cyclists and motorhomes, but with all eyes on the Grand Prix in the morning, it’s refreshingly quiet.

Flicking the drive select button cycles between the various modes, which include pure EV, comfort and balanced — all perfectly good for the daily drive. But things get really interesting when dynamic mode is introduced.

This offers a gentle introduction to the RS 5’s capabilities, delivering sharper throttle response and more precise, weightier steering. Torque delivery remains balanced, with a little rear bias as the vehicle slingshots out of a corner.

But it is the RS modes that really bring the vehicle to life, with the most ferocious of them all delivering maximum torque bias to the rear for the first time in a traditionally grippy quattro product.

It’s all thanks to new electromechanical torque-vectoring system that includes an 8kW water-cooled permanent-magnet electric motor that can precisely deliver torque to either of the four wheels in less than 15 milliseconds.

This is both under acceleration and under braking, while the system can be set-up to either deliver ungodly levels of grip through the tightest bends or siphon power to the rear wheels for silly, smoky drifts.

Naturally, this hardest RS mode isn’t exactly ideal for a rather treacherous Route Napoleon, but Audi says it allows customers to chew through tyres on a track day with reckless abandon. And chew they will, seeing as a drift optimiser on the infotainment display will analyse angles and G-forces for abandoned car park bragging rights.

Regardless, the other dynamic profiles are more than enough for most roads, with the 639hp total system power propelling the RS 5 to 62mph from a standstill in just 3.6 seconds and on to 178mph.

Gear changes via the steering-wheel mounted paddles are deliberately aggressive and the soundtrack is a sonorous V6 roar that is not only piped into the cabin, but also played out of the pipes for the world to hear.

And the steering? It’s lightning fast and super easy to use around town, but also offers enough feedback to let you know what the car is doing. The brakes are also absurdly powerful but the system cleverly blends regenerative technology with good-old stopping power.

It’s all blended beautifully and the way the big carbon ceramics scrub off pace is a marvel of modern engineering. Although, what do you expect when the front discs measure 17-inches in diameter — the same as most city car’s entire rim set-up.

Creature comforts

The art of disguising weight is now all about technology and there’s a lot to wrap your head around in the new Audi RS 5. The sheer weight of driving modes — and adjustability therein — requires a good few hours to master. Certainly more than we had during our test drive.

Audi ditched beautiful, RS-specific instrument binnacles ages ago, so customers now have to make do with a few fancy graphics on the plethora of displays on the latest MMI Panorama set-up.

“Total power output is 639hp, while total torque is a punchy 590lb ft”

As with the e-tron and products from sister company Porsche, there’s also a front passenger screen, which feels even more surplus to requirements here than it does in other products.

Attempting to prod and interact with that touchscreen while a co-driver navigates the twisting routes of coastal France is a sure fire way to lose your predominantly cheese- and bread-based lunch.

There are plenty of RS flourishes throughout the cabin though, and the sports-specific seats are hugely comfortable and supportive, even over longer distances.

The RS 5 Avant also has an impressively large boot, with some 361-litres of stowage space with the rear seats intact — enough for several bottles of France’s finest. Fold those down and you get up to 1,302-litres. Not as much as the new BMW M3 Touring but that’s the compromise when cramming in such a large battery pack.

But in terms of every day usability, there’s very little else that can offer the same raw, unadulterated power of the RS 5 and still happily work as a mild-mannered Monday morning commuter.

After all, there’s room for an entire family (albeit a bit squeezed in the rear), lots of luggage and several golf bags back there, while the fuel economy is such that you could contemplate taking it on a continent crossing adventure without having to remortgage the house first.

Race day

While driving the latest RS 5 around some of France’s best routes is undoubtedly special enough, Audi decided to take the opportunity to make the link between its race-honed super sedan (and wagon) and its Audi Revolut F1 team.

We’re not ones to argue with such an opportunity, so once car keys were firmly handed back to their rightful owners, it was a case of hopping on an Audi-branded VanDutch 40 luxury powerboat and speeding from the Port du Nice, around Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat and into Monaco’s world famous harbour.

The route proved almost other worldly, with the planet’s wealthiest people seemingly crammed into a small stretch of impossibly blue sea.

“Sir Phillip Green’s Lionheart sat idling opposite LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault’s Symphony, creating a corridor of wealth in which every luxurious tender had to glide past”

Helicopters buzzed overhead as the rich and famous were ferried from Nice airport to Monaco’s exceptionally busy heliport, while the sleek hull of the VanDutch sliced through choppy water, disturbed not by the wind, but by the propellors of super yachts.

Sir Phillip Green’s Lionheart sat idling opposite LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault’s Symphony, creating a corridor of wealth in which every luxurious tender had to glide past in order to get into what felt like the busiest jetty on the planet.

Harbour police on jet skis attempted to control the flow of traffic, as impatient passengers looked to cut the queue and get inside the Paddock Club.

This temporary structure, which could easily pass as a modern piece of architecture, sits right on the Circuit de Monaco’s Rascasse corner, the penultimate hairpin turn before the racers accelerate along the final straight.

As viewing points go, they don’t get much better than the Paddock Club, whose balcony hangs over one of the main thoroughfares the drivers have to navigate to get to and from the pits. Hang around long enough and you’ll see all manner of celebrities, TV presenters and sports stars passing beneath.

Qualifying on Saturday proved an intensely fraught affair, with Audi Revolut’s Bortoleto clipping the wall and making do with a sixteenth place start on the grid, while the veteran Hülkenberg only managed thirteenth.

The young rookie managed to fight back on race day, clawing back a few paces to finish twelfth, with his team mate crossing the line in ninth, only to drop down to fourteenth following a post-race penalty.

Anyone who has dabbled in F1 over the years will likely bemoan the changes: the cars aren’t as noisy, the racing is more complex and nuanced, things are safer and, in a bizarre twist, somehow less exciting.

But Monaco is proof this isn’t the case. It’s just as glamorous, the racing is just as tantalising and the crowds are now arguably more passionate than ever.

You could draw a similar parallel to the RS 5, itself a product of a new, more emissions-focussed environment. Yes, the PHEV platform is different, but it’s just as raw, focussed and unhinged as any RS product that has come before it.