The S5 is a little fresh faced compared to the M3

A 30-year old heavyweight boxer from Ohio stands in the ring in Tokyo, Japan. Still mourning the loss of his mother three weeks earlier, he is about to face “the baddest man on the planet” for the title of Heavyweight Champion of the World. It is February 11, 1990, and his opponent is Mike Tyson.

The odds are against him. He is six years older than Tyson, has an inconsistent boxing history and journalists are mocking his attempt at the fight as a “pitiful mission”. Bookmakers have placed Tyson as a 42-1 favourite.

The bell rings. Tyson is hit left and right. His eye starts to swell. Several rounds go by. At the tenth, a massive right uppercut connects with Tyson’s jaw and he’s floored. Battered and dazed, Tyson’s eye is now completely shut. The new champion is now James “Buster” Douglas, a so-called “newcomer” from Ohio who has just caused one of the biggest upsets in sporting history.

Six years later in the Spanish town of Barcelona, a 27-year old racing driver from a small town in western Germany sits on the start/finish line of the Circuit de Catalunya. It is June 2, 1996, and his chances of winning look slim. His car isn’t well developed. The team has not won a Drivers’ Championship for 27 years and their previous cars had been mocked as “pig, “truck” and “accident waiting to happen.”

The race begins – and so does torrential rain. Despite his engine misfiring at the end, he is so far ahead by the last lap that it doesn’t matter. He takes an easy win. The driver is Michael Schumacher, and he has just recorded one of his greatest drives in a Formula 1 Grand Prix.

A further 12 years on, a black politician with a vision achieves no lesser a-feat. The son of a Kenyan father and a white mother, Barack Hussein Obama is inaugurated President of the United States of America. Three million people crowd in front of The White House in the freezing cold of a Tuesday afternoon. Another chapter in history is being written.

A few days later, and the scene is a little less dramatic. In the still silence of the Dubai desert, three guys from a plucky Middle East car magazine called evo stand on a short stretch of bumpy road with two German machines. It’s January 25, 2009, and being slowly cooked by the searing heat and having nothing to distract them but a few discarded pieces of metal lying in the sand and some bushes, they wonder if the new Audi S5 can in any way hold its own against the all-conquering BMW M3.

This last event isn’t as significant and may seem odd in comparison to the other three. But the common factor linking James Douglas, Michael Schumacher and Barack Obama lies in the S5/M3 face-off we have here.

OK, so strictly speaking, this isn’t a fair fight. Granted, there are some parallels: both are similar in proportion, both have sporting intentions, both have four seats, both come from two of Germany’s great automotive powerhouses, both have powerful engines; both can reach 100kmh in less than six seconds; both have the obsessive attention to detail and reliability of a Swiss watch.

"It's obvious the M3 is the fatest, more seroious car?"

This though, is where the similarities end. One has the breeding of a racecar, the other is a new kid on the block. One uses high-grade materials to propel you into the distance, the other has high-end materials that make you feel comfortable. One has 414bhp and 295lb-ft of torque, the other 354bhp and 324lb-ft. One is $ 94k, the other is considerably cheaper at $ 80k.

This isn’t a guessing game. It’s quite obvious that the BMW M3 is the faster, more serious, more hard-edged and more expensive car. A short walk around its four corners and a key is enough to give the game away. For a start, the unmistakable power bulge and two air vents in the bonnet hide the 4-litre V8. At the snarling nose there are sharp edges and a gaping mouth. Observing it from the side, you see the large alloys fitting snugly in wide haunches, and aerodynamic wing mirrors that have been shaped to improve airflow. On the top, there’s the light, black, carbon fibre roof and from the back, the four menacing-looking pipes that stick out ever so slightly along with the subtle spoiler, make it look a bit of a troublemaker, compared to the sleek “pretty boy” that is the S5.

The Audi is admittedly a little fresh-faced compared to the butch M3, and at the same time better looking. Its swoopy lines give it a cool, elegant cruiser-type feel and cover Audi’s new MLB chassis (MLB is short for modular longitudinal chassis – the architecture which will pin the new Q5 off-roader and A7 coupé, as well as the replacement A8, A6 and A4).

You get a similar effect when you drop into the driver’s seat. Here, the difference between the two Germans is just as prominent. The S5 is a pleasant place to be. Everything is made of quality materials and every button and knob has a very satisfying and solid feel to it; God knows how long Ingolstadt’s testers have spent trying to perfect things like the number of millimetres the button for the electric window travels and what kind of sound it should make when you press it. That’s not important now. The main thing is that the whole cabin gives you a good sensation and frankly, puts a $ 164k Mercedes SL63 to shame. The same thing goes for the seats (the M3’s aren’t as comfortable and supportive) and the beautiful dials. It’s not that the M3 isn’t pleasant to be in (or less solid), it’s just that the S5 is a notch above.

That, unfortunately for the Audi, is what characterises the whole car. From the moment you prod the throttle, the S5 releases a deep and satisfying V8 thrum that gives you a warm and comfortable feeling inside, whereas the loud Bavarian makes a high-pitched wail that’s far more audible – both from inside and out. In fact, the M3 can be heard from twice the distance away. It’s very similar to the old M3, but sounds more ferocious. That doesn’t mean the S5’s 4.2-litre V8 should be mistaken for being lazy; 354bhp gets it to 100km/h in a respectable 5.4sec and without the electronic limiter, somewhere north of 255km/h (the dial goes up to 300km/h).

The M3’s heart is another animal altogether. Whereas the S5 gives you a calm and refined shove and never lets the engine note make its way into the cabin too much, the BM’s 414 horses deliver a frenetic punch in your back, all the way to 8,300rpm, when all the change-up lights are now in full ‘Christmas tree’ mode and you shift up on the cheap silver paddles – quite a big anomaly considering its quality – and another punch is delivered, all the way to seventh gear. Quite addictive. Especially as the engine’s wail can’t be ignored in the silence of an empty stretch of desert road like the one we’re on.

You can’t ignore the steering either. At low speeds it’s heavy and a bit cumbersome, and it’s amplified by the thick steering wheel. You need to build some speed – engine speed that is, because the high-revving V8 doesn’t really want to work its magic below 3,000rpm – at which point it lightens up and, compared to the S5, becomes very sharp. Out in the heat, it really is just man and M3 machine, with nothing to keep you company except long grass and a few flies.

Mind you, it’s not as sharp as the last M3. There’s a bit of roll on turn-in and you can feel the forces increase as you wind on more lock. Perhaps this was meant to be a friendlier car. For the M3, Michelin developed tyres that induce mild understeer in extreme circumstances. Though don’t be fooled that it won’t oversteer: it will. Even with the Dynamic Stability Control turned on, when in M mode, the tail does like to get wagging from time to time, particularly out of a tight junction. Not something you experience on the sombre (at least in comparison) S5. Even with the stability control turned off, you need to be doing some serious speed to upset the Quattro system. The fact that that’s entirely the opposite case in the M3 goes some way to justifying the BMW’s price tag.

"The Audi is a brilliant everyday car and the BMW isn't; the M3's ride is just too uncompromising"

The understeer that’s there comes on gradually. Build up your pace and steering movements and you gradually begin to learn the character of the M3: comfortable to have understeer wound into it, and equally as comfortable powering out in a drift on a crescendo of revs. Of course you can feed oversteer in and oversteer out – the steering is well-weighted and throttle easily modulated if you fancy that kind of play – but it isn’t something you’d do on normal roads. The ones here in the expanse of the open land, despite being completely empty, aren’t ones for experimenting on. Crests come up very often and the patches of sand blown over into the road the previous night aren’t always seen early enough. Still, it’s good to know that the BM’ is flexible enough in its inputs that it can be controlled.

Audi has made some revisions to the S5 too. It stuck to its longitudinal engine layout (criticised for making Audis feel nose-heavy) but you’ll now find it mounted ahead of the clutch. The longer wheelbase reduces the overhang on the front and the result is an ideal 50:50 weight distribution. As for the steering, Audi has mounted the steering column lower in the chassis to improve the feel. It’s worked, to some extent. It is communicative and doesn’t get upset by an increase in speed or the roughness of broken roads. At the same time, the feedback isn’t comparable to the M3, or any 3-Series for that matter. In the Beemer, even on the smooth asphalt of a deserted, perfectly straight road, you can still feel the little bumps where the road has bent slightly over time. That’s why the S5 is a brilliant everyday car and the M3 isn’t; the M3’s ride is just too uncompromising. No matter what setting you choose on the Electronic Damper Control, every hump or inconsistency in the road sends a jolt through your body. The S5 manages to feel sporting without breaking your back.

The Beemer has another problem, too. The seven-speed double-clutch gearbox is good at only one thing: when you want to go up and down the gears at speeds. If you’ve set the ‘box to D and suddenly need to make a quick manoeuvre, you have to first flick the left-hand paddle to engage manual mode, then change down a few gears, wait, and only when you’ve found the right number of revs, floor it. Once over with, you have to push the mini-gearlever to the right to return the gearbox to it’s automatic setting. It’s a long process, and the only way to solve it is to set the choice of six change speeds to maximum (why you’d need six settings is anyone’s guess). That way the gearbox will change down automatically as fast as possible. But then you encounter another problem: with the gear-change speed set to “as fast as possible” changes become very jerky at slow speeds. It’s annoying to say the least.

While on the subject of gearboxes, it has to be said that the Audi’s is no better. It’s a six-speed tiptronic automatic and can be slow to change down. Quite frustrating when you’ve gone into a tight bend quickly and you’re trying to accelerate out of it and have to wait what seems like an age for the car to sort itself out and figure out what gear it should be in.

The result of all of this? Both have their downsides, which makes the choice less obvious.

And here we come to the nub of the problem: the S5 is a grand tourer that appeals through love; the M3 is a focused machine that appeals through excitement. This leaves us with two questions: which is the smarter choice? And, more importantly, what does the S5 have to do with James Douglas, Michael Schumacher and Barack Obama? The story that unites the three men is that each of them – like the S5 – faced a challenge. None of these men were expected to win. But each one had the same spirit: the spirit of an underdog. It made their victory all the more incredible. It may have been skill, mental ability or bravery (or a mix of all three), yet they all made it.

The S5 is undoubtedly the underdog in this fight. Not just down on power, but down on handling and excitement too. It’s beginning to seem like a bit of a struggle. To quote the great Winston Churchill: ‘When you are going through hell, keep going.’ At the moment, standing against the M3, the S5 could use those words…

So here comes the clincher: has the S5 been given too steep a-mountain to climb in the shape of the M3? Can its lower price tag make up for its shortcomings? After all, for the price of the M3 you could get a more involving Porsche 911 Carrera 4S and still have some change left over.

Well, the answer is “Yes” and “Maybe”. Yes, the S5 isn’t really a match for the hugely capable M3 and falls short on many points. And maybe the S5 can use its price to its advantage – if you look at it from another perspective.

Spend $ 14k more on a faster, more enjoyable car and you get a constantly hard ride and a hole in your pocket. If you want something a bit cheaper that you’ll be able to enjoy every day, with the occasional blast, the four-ringed cruiser might be right for you. Using it to explore the limits of physics though is a bit of a no-no.

The S5, perhaps a bit sadly, doesn’t quite make it against the more switched-on M3. But there is a positive side to this story. A 450bhp RS5 is rumoured to be arriving next year. We’ll see who’s the underdog then…