"Excuse Me Mate, Know the Way to the Dakar?"

Audi's RS Q e-tron was designed to monster the desert... time to venture outside its comfort zone

- By Ollie Marriage

A tape measure. I knew I’d forgotten something. Budduso is like any other Mediterranean hill town, impossibly ancient and solid, tall houses crowding over narrow cobbled streets, leaning over to keep an eye on the world below. I might be able to get the shuttered windows to open a crack today, given what I’m bringing here in an hour or two. As long as it fits. Because tough though it is, it’s going to come off second best in a scrap with Budduso. Hence the gap checking tape measure. Whoops.

I settle for stopping the Fiat Tipo renter between stone and concrete walls and getting out to guess if something over two feet wider will fit. All too often the answer is no. Oh well, should make for a challenge. And reversing is going to be such a doddle...

I drive the few miles back to Loelle. No need to navigate as rising above the cork trees and olive groves of Sardinia’s lofty inland plateau is a billowing orange dust cloud. Its cause, its centre, is the car I’ve come here to drive: Audi’s RS Q e-tron Dakar machine. It’s not really a car is it? The high front makes it look like it’s in a constant hover, a spaceship vibe that the gulping roof vent and central fin do nothing to diminish.

And then there’s the Star Trek noises. Frantic whining, squealing, wailing – it sounds like it’s in pain. It probably is given how Carlos Sainz Sr is thrashing it around right now.