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Audi's sub-suv drives well, has a great interior and a good range of engines, says tom ford. but it's not sporty or exciting, despite the blurb

If I hear the word 'sporty' or 'performance' taken in vain yet again in the next 30 seconds, I'm going to lash out and start kicking chairs over. Not everything in the universe has to be 'sporty' or 'performance' to give it credibility. Not being sporty is, in fact, perfectly acceptable. I don't need performance-orientated underpants, or a sporty door handle, and both are things that I personally could live without.

So why is Audi launching a small 'performance' SUV that it is touting as the 'sports car in the SUV category' without any sense of irony? It does not compute. Though it possibly has something to do with the same marketing team that came up with the assertion that the Q5 is 'small', when all things are relative and the Q5 is only actually small when compared to big-brother Q7, which has its own gravity well.

Still, if you take a gander at the ever-increasing strata of sub full-size SUVs/SAVs (or whatever sub-category the men in suits have casually rolled out this week), you'll see that the Q5 is aiming squarely for the top end of the market, and making no apologies for it. So you can forget realistic group tests with the Nissan X-Trails of the world; the Q5 starts at £30k and continues ever upwards into the fiscal realms of some very competent machinery. It had better be something special.

The bare-paper stuff certainly reads like Audi isn't skimping on the smaller of its two-model SUV range. The Q5 will be launchedin the UK with a rebuilt-from-the-ground-up 211bhp 2.0TFSI four-cylinder petrol, now with variable valve lift, and a pair of diesels, the 170bhp, 2.0-litre TDi four and the 240bhp, 3.0-litre TDi V6. The small four-pot diesel gets a six-speed manual transmission, while the two others benefit from next-generation 'S-Tronic' double-clutchery, now with seven speeds.

The drivetrain is quattro across the range and uses a 40/60 front/rear bias in normal driving conditions to give 'sporty handling and a rear-driven emphasis'. Hmm. Should things get tricky, 65 per cent of the available torque can be shoved through the front wheels, or 85 per cent through the rears, and there's a hill-descent control for light off-road, and some clever ESP programming that can alter various parameters depending on what surface you're on (mud/sand/rubble), or even sense if you've got a heavy load on the roof rails.

But even though the new Q5 will be offered with several off-roady options, Audi is more or less convinced that most won't see dirt unless one has to swerve around a poor person. There's an option called 'Audi drive select' that has the usual settings (comfort, auto and dynamic) that affect the usual parameters (steering, throttle map, gearbox actuation). That tells you more or less all you need to know - this car is set up for road-going adjustability rather than off-road unstoppability.

It works, though. The Q5 itself has a long wheelbase compared to others in the sector - the diffe rential is located ahead of the clutch directly behind the engine, as on the A4, allowing the front axle to be pushed well forward - and that makes for stable and regular progress, even when you go pretty quickly. This is supposed to add to the car's, and I quote, 'thrilling dynamism'. Ahem.

Sorry, no, the Q5 isn't exactly thrilling in any guise - even though the acceleration figures are undoubtedly impressive - but what it is, is superbly confident. It rides well, even without the drive-select system. In fact, flicking between the triple functions invariably had me leaving the system in 'auto' and letting a couple of megabytes of processing power take care of the damping.

The steering tries hard, but still manages to feel mightily assisted and then retuned with fake 'feel'. It’s the tofu steering experience – not the real thing, but sometimes tastes a bit like it if you're not really paying attention. It's certainly not what Audi describe as 'worthy of a sports sedan'. Again, it's perfectly good for this kind of vehicle - just slightly oversold.