2023 BMW M2 Drags 2023 Audi RS 3, and Their War Is Far From Over

Thanks to the happy duo at Throttle House, we have a definitive answer – that leaves a lot of room for second thoughts and change-of-minds. While theoretically a categoric winner according to paper math, the BMW Baby M does have a significant drawback in this comparison: the rear-wheel drive.

Yes, it is more powerful and torquey, but also heavier, and the Audi has the benefit of the Quattro to get the games going in its favor. This will never end – the skirmish between the two carmakers from across the Atlantic – and we might as well enjoy their perpetual cat-and-mouse game.

On the red corner, the BMW M2: 453 hp, 406 lb-ft of torque – 460 PS and 550 Nm – and a burnout’s worth of rubber debris under 4,000 lbs (1.8 tons). The ZF eight-speed fully automatic rapid-firing gearbox puts the M TwinPower Turbo power down to the rear tires only, and no extra option can change that.

It’s the Bimmer’s Achilles heel, and Audi took full advantage of this soft spot in the Bavarian underbelly. Standing in the green corner, the RS 3 has one cylinder and a pint of displacement less than the BMW, and that takes an enormous toll on performance.

395 hp and 369 lb-ft (400 PS and 500 Nm) make the quad-circle badged athlete quite outgunned. It compensates with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission linked to a front diff and a rear-axle torque splitter.

Standard equipment on the RS 3, this twin multi-plate clutch assembly can send every drop of the biased power to only one of the rear wheels. That effectively means that one of the rear spinners can fire a broadside of 197 hp (200 PS) if needed in a problematic cornering situation.

And yet, despite its all-wheel drive system, the Audi is lighter than the eternal rival, at 1.65 tons. That’s precisely why it takes the standing quarter mile with flying colors, leaving the BMW M2 in the rearview mirror.

However, the steroid-fed Baby M comes back with a vengeance in the rolling race and takes no prisoners: the sheer disproportion in horsepower and torque means the fight is a one-way game from start to finish.

Surprisingly, the M2 takes the win in the third round of this race– a hot lap around the track in Canada on non-road-legal tires. Granted, it is just fractionally faster than the AWD Audi – 14 hundredths of a second, to be precise – but it makes no difference in the end.