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Tesla Model 3 Battles Mercedes-AMG A 45 S in Illegal Hillclimb Drift Dance

Before you hit that play button on the clip below you might want to take a second and think about how dangerous this type of driving is on open public roads. Yeah, it looks fun, but street racing is illegal for a reason.
Tesla Model 3 following Mercedes-AMG A 45 S 4 photos
Photo: Sebastian Vittel/YouTube screenshot
Tesla Model 3 following Mercedes-AMG A 45 STesla Model 3 following Mercedes-AMG A 45 STesla Model 3 following Mercedes-AMG A 45 S
We came across this video from mysterious YouTuber Sebastian Vittel (not the F1 driver, obviously, note the i in Vittel), who seems to be a racing driver with over 5,000 laps of the Nurburgring under his belt.

Unlike other clips from his channel, this one doesn’t feature a racing track but a public mountain road somewhere in Germany, with the excitement it contains once you go full screen being definitely comparable to that of a hillclimb race.

In short, a Tesla Model 3 Performance is actively pursuing a Mercedes-AMG A 45 S at full chat up the mountain, with both cars being allegedly driven by actual racing drivers. The YouTube description says that the Tesla was driven by an LMP driver, while the A 45 S was manhandled by a WRC rally driver.

There’s no way of telling who the drivers are or if their resumes do include official motorsport driving jobs, but even if that were true it doesn’t make their feat any less dangerous and illegal. That said, it's definitely worth a watch.

Apparently, both cars were shod with Michelin Pilot sport 4 S tires and the electronic stability programs were switched off.

The Tesla was in Track Mode V2, with the power distribution being customized to go 90 percent to the rear axle and only 10 percent to the front, while the Mercedes-AMG A 45 S was in Drift Mode the entire time.

While the Model 3 is obviously more powerful and way faster in a straight line on paper, it looks like on this occasion it kind of struggled to keep up with the AMG hot hatch on the straights as well, only getting in its taillights during the Tesla’s more efficient braking.

That said, the Tesla managed to overheat its battery in the latter part of the climb and took 2 minutes to cool off, but so did an oil temperature alert pop up on the AMG at around the same time.

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About the author: Alex Oagana
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Alex handled his first real steering wheel at the age of five (on a field) and started practicing "Scandinavian Flicks" at 14 (on non-public gravel roads). Following his time at the University of Journalism, he landed his first real job at the local franchise of Top Gear magazine a few years before Mircea (Panait). Not long after, Alex entered the New Media realm with the autoevolution.com project.
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