The 1986 Audi Quattro S1 was the most powerful and sophisticated of the Quattro rally car line. However, the dramatically increased power and speeds of that year’s Group B cars became so dangerous that these mighty cars were soon abolished.
It was a very difficult decision at the time to go to Audi, which seems strange now. But then I was doing very well and had a few good possibilities to do rallies with other manufacturers, but Audi persuaded me to come to test the normal Quattro car. I could tell there was some- thing there, and I thought, “maybe this is something good but I am not quite sure” so I decided to sleep on it that night and reached a decision the next day. After all, it was a very unproven car and no one had been doing rallies with turbo engines. It was a new shock-absorber company, a new tire company and a new team, so everything was new and it was a big risk for my career. I could see the potential and I had been thinking about it for a while but we really didn’t know anything about the four-wheel-drive cars at that time. But I thought I would be stupid if I missed that opportunity. I thought that if it turned out to be as good as I thought it might be, I knew it would be very competitive, and something very special in rallying.
Hannu Mikkola
It took us a full six months to realize that this was the way to go. It wasn’t easy in the beginning. I did the early testing and development, with Freddy Kottulinsky…in fact he is still racing and doing Formula Three and historic racing…he always wanted to be driving. I had to re-think my way of driving the Quattro…not so much the four-wheel drive, but the turbo engine, which presented a new situation. I had to learn how to left-foot brake because at that time we had a hell of a lag on the turbo engine. I was usually driving on the brake and accelerator at the same time to keep the boost on. It is hard for people with modern turbo engines to imagine just how different it was when the turbo first came out, especially on a competition car, and one with so much power.
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