[ainarssems]

Originally Posted by M-A8

Sideways is spectacular, but when you floor it in wet and ESP kicks in before you even get up to speed, your engine is reving, exhaust is screaming but car is literally crawling isn't - rather pathetic, but the back end doesn't steps out

I know exactly what you mean. Thankfully my S8 is old enough not to have ESP or traction control and with mechanical throttle so I do not get any interference but it does catch me out sometimes. While I expect rear wheels to spin in wet sometimes it throws me unexpected surprise in dry. I bet it looks a bit wonky if I get scared and release throttle. By comparison my other car 2.5 TDI A6 quattro looses traction at he back a lot more as it's tuned to have around 440-445Nm compared to S8 410Nm and has manual gearbox and skinny tyres. Although I am pretty good after 5 years of A6 ownership to judge grip sometimes it catches me out and when ESP cuts power it seems to last forever. I would expect D3 and S car to have faster and more sport orientated ESP to be less intrusive.
Also on A6 if I switch off ESP it still seems to be working but at lesser stage, only way to fully disangage it seems to be cut power yo ABS ECU.